These journal notes I am sending you with my love, care of the State Department, Washington.
A. D. TO POLLY
En Route,
May.
Goodbye, Rome! I’m on the train at last, speeding away from the Eternal City.
When I came home to dress for my farewell Roman dinner last evening, there was a note on the table from the Doyen of the Ambassadors stating that the King would receive at twenty-one hours and thirty minutes. I hurriedly calculated this would be half-past ten, so calmly went off to dine with some of my old pals, a sort of goodbye party, thinking there would be plenty of time. Suddenly I had a lucid moment and realized that twenty-one thirty meant half-past nine! I looked at my watch—just twenty-eight minutes past. Whew, but I flew—took a cab and galloped at full speed to the Quirinal, rushed up the great staircase past the astonished lackeys, through the guard room into the State Reception Rooms, got there, terribly out of breath, but—on the minute!
It was a pretty sight, the Royal Circle in the Salon of the Mirrors. We stood in a row,—“we few, we happy few, we band of brothers”—while the King and Queen went as usual to each and talked. When he came to me, I told him I was going home to be married, and got so enthusiastic in telling how happy I was, how anxious and eager, how it was the only thing which made me willing to leave His Majesty’s Court that he got roused, too, and said really very pleasant things, and shook me by the hand with a hearty good wish and good-bye, and strutted away most amicably. To the Queen, also, I insisted on talking of my felicity, and she said she had heard of it and wished us well. So! A Royal Pair approves our wedding, if not an Aunt. You might point that out to your title-loving guardian; perhaps she will think a little more kindly of me.
Today before I left the Embassy, my successor arrived, and to him I handed all the lire that were left, and papers and so forth. The office had been thoroughly cleaned and dusted, a new carpet put down, and new window-curtains put up. I showed him everything I could think of, shook him by the hand, and just caught my train.