"Well, of all the traeumbilder I ever heard!" and Mrs. Dwight's pearly teeth gleamed through rosy lips as she laughed delightedly, merrily. "Why, Jimmy boy, I had to shake you awake when I saw papa coming. That's what I bent forward for. You called him for something, dear, or I shouldn't have disturbed him."
"Certainly, I wanted him to see those Italian cavalry officers coming by, and his eyes could hardly open in time. Just look at 'em now."
They were, indeed, worth looking at—big and violet, blue and round and full of wonderment, of incredulity—almost of shock and distress—gazing fixedly upon the lovely, laughing face of the girl in the deep reclining chair.
And then, soft stepping, apologetic, salver in hand, a waiter appeared at the long Venetian window. Dwight took the card, read, and fairly cried aloud:
"By all that's jolly, Inez, it's Sandy Ray!"
CHAPTER III
A NIGHT AT NAPLES
There was a joyous time at the Salone Margherita that evening. Homeward bound, the Burnside, from Manila to New York via Suez, had anchored that morning off the Dogana quay, and twoscore officers and ladies and a numerous contingent of discharged soldiers had come swarming ashore to see what they could of Naples before again proceeding on the morrow. The fact that most of the officers were invalided home, convalescing from wounds or severe illness, seemed but moderately to cloud their enjoyment. By six o'clock most of their number had heard that Dwight of the cavalry, with his bride, was at the Grand, whither several went at once before ordering dinner. First to arrive, alone, and looking pallid and ill, was a young soldier in civilian dress, who seemed nervously impatient at the delay that followed the sending up of his card, and by no means delighted when three or four of his fellows came in and followed suit before his own was acknowledged. So uncompanionable, indeed, was he that he stepped outside to the southward terrace as though to avoid these others, and, but for the cards, the observant portier might have thought them strangers to each other. The late arrivals, as a rule, were garbed in khaki, just as they had come away from Manila, and were objects of polite curiosity to the elegantly capped, cloaked and uniformed Italian officers sauntering in from the Piazza Umberto, many of whom saluted courteously, though few could tell from the dress worn by the Americans which was officer and which was private soldier.
It was full fifteen minutes before Captain Dwight appeared, though little Jim had come bounding down the carpeted stairway all joy at seeing a face or two he well remembered, and in meeting new friends, who were unspeakably welcome because they were soldiers, American soldiers, our soldiers. Father, he said, would be down in a moment. Mamma was not quite well, over-tired, perhaps, from the long drive and day at sight-seeing and shopping. Even when Dwight appeared, shaking hands most cordially, rejoicefully, with all, and, indeed, nearly embracing Sandy Ray, whom he had known since that young gentleman's babyhood, it was a disappointment to all his visitors that he seemed worried and harassed. Mrs. Dwight, he explained, had not benefited as they had hoped by the journeyings abroad, and she had just had something like a sinking spell. They would have to excuse her a while. She'd be down later. "But you, too, Sandy boy! What a tough time you must have been having! I hadn't heard of your being ill. I haven't heard anything, in fact. Your father hasn't written to me at all. What has been the matter?"