“Dining in a little trattoria with—”
“Anyone I know?”
Boris nodded and I guessed at once that he meant Carlo but preferred not to say so definitely.
So I took the hint and kept a careful lookout for a few days, and sure enough, there she was, hanging about or strolling past every time that Carlo came to visit me. Once the captain who had just been calling on me, stopped and spoke to her; he appeared to be angry. So I took the Prince, who had dropped in, and we shadowed them home, quite delighted with ourselves and our adventure, until they separated, he striding away surlily and she looking after him until he turned the corner. Then she went into a tumbled-down house.
“Signor, who lives there?” I asked of a neighbor lounging on his steps.
“The gardener of Capitano Carlo,” he told me politely. So there was all my evidence, and the next time we met I told my Italian Captain about the letter and that I had discovered the author of it. He admitted that I was probably right, and that it sounded like his gardener’s daughter.
She was jealous of me, evidently, but he didn’t seem at all put out about it,—in fact I think it rather tickled his vanity. People say the poor girl is half mad about him.
Carlo is now in an army prison for having been seen at the Marquis’ dance when he was supposed to be on the sick list. He writes me he will go to South Africa if I won’t be good to him.
This afternoon we got our things together to give our American Dip—short for diplomat—a surprise party at his rooms. But he had found out somehow or other, and as we entered we saw a large sign, “WELCOME, SURPRISE PARTY,” and in other places there were drawings representing “the joyous hand” and “the joyous eye,” and besides these, a notice saying that suspicious people had been seen about the place. He is very original and clever. The dinner was awfully jolly and we had great fun as people always do at his parties. Thank Heaven, Mona Lisa was not there.
After it was all over we drove to the Coliseum, for the moon was full. A. D. and I wandered round; it was a beautiful night, the great amphitheatre all gleaming silver. I hadn’t seen any old moonlit ruins since Karnak on the Nile, and there wasn’t any nice young man to see that with. He is such a dear, but a flirt, and I’m sure he’s engaged to Madame Mona Lisa with the lovely gray cat’s eyes. I wish he were half as devoted to me as the Prince is—no, I don’t either, but there isn’t any rubber on my pencil, so I can’t erase it.