Colin knew that the skill with which he had effected the alteration which yet left the entry unaltered, would now be put to the test, but he felt no qualm whatever as to detection. The idea had been inspired, and he had no doubt that the execution of it was on the same level of felicitous audacity. They passed back into the archive-room together, and the Consul sat himself before the volume and the copy.
“Yes, March the first, March the first,” he said, comparing the two, “Philip Lord Stanier, Philip Lord Stanier, quite correct. Ha! you have left out a full stop after his name, Mr. Stanier. Yes, Rosina Viagi, of 93 Via Emmanuele....”
He wrote underneath his certificate that this was a true and faithful copy of the entry in the Consular archives, signed his name, stamped it with the official seal and date, and handed it to Colin.
“That will serve your father’s purpose,” he said, and replacing the volume on its shelf, locked the wire door of its bookcase.
“If you will be so good as to wait five minutes,” he said, “I will just finish answering a telegram that demands my attention, and then I shall be at your service for the evening.”
He gave a discreet little chuckle.
“We will dine en garçon,” he said, “at a restaurant which I find more than tolerable, and shall no doubt contrive some pleasant way of passing the evening. Naples keeps late hours, Mr. Stanier, and I should not be surprised if you found the first boat to Capri inconveniently early. We shall see.”
Mr. Cecil appeared to put off the cares and dignity of officialdom with singular completeness when the day’s work was over, and Colin found he had an agreeably juvenile companion, ready to throw himself with zest into the diversions, whatever they might be, of the evening. He ate with the appetite of a lion-cub, consumed a very special wine in magnificent quantities, and had a perfect battery of smiles and winks for the Neapolitans who frequented the restaurant.
“Dulce est desipere in loco,” he remarked gaily, “and that’s about the sum of the Latin that remains to me, and, after all, it can be expressed equally well in English by saying ‘All work, no play, makes Jack a dull boy.’ And when we have finished our wine, all the amusements of this amusing city are at your disposal. There is an admirable cinematograph just across the road, there is a music-hall a few doors away, but if you choose that, you must not hold me responsible for what you hear there. Or if you think it too hot a night for indoor entertainment, there is the Galleria Umberto, which is cool and airy, but again, if you choose that, you must not hold me responsible for what you see there. Children of nature: that is what we Neapolitans are. We, did I say? Well, I feel myself one of them, when the Consulate is shut, not when I am on duty, mark that, Mr. Stanier. But my private life is my own, and then I shed my English skin.”
In spite of the diversions of the city, Colin was brisk enough in the morning to catch the early boat, and once more, as he had done a month ago on his initial visit to the island, he sequestered himself from the crowd under the awning, and sought solitude in the dipping bows of the little steamer. To-day, however, there was no chance of his meditations being interrupted by his father with tedious talk of days spent at Sorrento; no irksome demonstrations of love were there to be responded to, but he could without hindrance explore not only his future path, but, no less, estimate the significance of what he had done already.