‘Oh, yes!’ cried Teresa incredulously. ‘And Maria told me she had been to confession.’
‘If she said so, it is true. If we had met we should have stopped to speak. We might have walked a little way together. But we have not met.’
Teresa Crescenzi did not believe him. She had managed to get rid of her veil while walking, and without being noticed by him. Women can do such things easily when a man is very much preoccupied about other matters.
‘As you like,’ she answered, and her tone was anything but complimentary to his truthfulness.
But he did not take up the question after having once told her the truth, and when he opened the door of the cab they found in the Piazza Barberini there was a distinct coolness in their leave-taking. He gave the cabman her address and went away on foot down the crowded Tritone towards the city. When he had walked a quarter of an hour he looked at his watch, stopped a policeman, and asked for the nearest public telephone office.
He called for Maria Montalto’s number and was answered by Agostino, the butler. He inquired whether the Countess would speak with him herself, and presently he heard her voice.
‘I am Castiglione,’ he said. ‘Is it true that Teresa Crescenzi met you in the Via di San Basilio when you were walking home from confession half an hour ago?’
‘Yes—but how——’
He interrupted her at once.