Hillard slipped into the pause.
"Did you issue those invitations yourself?" he asked this strange, incomprehensible woman.
"Do you believe that?" La Signorina demanded, with narrowing eyes.
"I don't know what to believe. But I repeat the question."
"On my word of honor, I know no more about this mystery than you do." And there was truth in her voice and eyes.
"But are you not over-sure of your princess? Being a woman, may she not have changed her plans?"
"Not without consulting me. I am not only sure," she added with a positiveness which brooked no further question, "but to-morrow I shall prove to you that her Highness has not changed her plans. I shall send her a telegram at once, and you shall see the reply. But you, Mr. Hillard, will you, too, desert me?"
"Oh, as for that, I am mad likewise," he said, with a smile on his lips but none in his eyes. "I'll see the farce to the end, even if that end is jail."
"If!" cried O'Mally. "You speak as though you had some doubt regarding that possibility!"
"So I have." Hillard went to the table, selected a rose, and drew it through the lapel of his coat.