“Find me Steccho at once. Take him in a taxi to the Park entrance at Columbus Circle. Dismiss the car there and walk into the shadows of the Park. I will pick you up a hundred yards beyond the Monument at twelve-thirty.” He paused to glance at his own reflection in the long mirror, adding, as to his chauffeur, “Make haste!”
Back at Belvoir Carlota had dressed while Jacobelli paced up and down outside her door. The maid assisted her excitedly, fondling the jewels and gown as she packed them.
“You were a triumph, Miss Roma,” she said. “They talk of nothing but you outside.”
Carlota did not answer. Her face was pale and determined. Jacobelli had telephoned the Lafayette after demanding from her Maria’s whereabouts. He had had the Marchese paged, and had asked him most sarcastically where he imagined Carlota might be at that hour. Where, returned the old Marchese genially, but in her own bed, reposing restfully, after a most severe headache?
“She is not that,” stormed Jacobelli. “She is out here—at Belvoir, Long Island, at the home of Mrs. Nevins, wasting her voice for charity with a person who claims he is her teacher. I bring her back with me at once.”
The Marchese protested that Carlota could not have any wrong intentions, that Maria must not be alarmed.
“Alarmed!” repeated Jacobelli solemnly. “I would so alarm her that never would she permit the girl out of her sight until her début. I tell you this is not a joke, Veracci. She has scaled the wall of Tittani, mark me. You will understand when you see this man. Meet us at the apartment. Not only has she sung here to-night, but she has wasted also the Paoli jewels. She has worn the priceless rubies of Margherita as if they were garnets.”
He lingered in the corridor booth, and Ames watched eagerly for a glimpse of Carlota before she left. Mrs. Nevins was delicately, pointedly cynical and distant with him.
“My dear Mr. Ames, can’t you see that this is all rather unpleasant for me? Of course the girl is very pretty and her voice is a rarity, but, after all, was it not somewhat unprofessional and unsportsmanlike of you to enter her in a race for amateurs, as it were?”
“But I never dreamt for an instant that she was from a famous or professional family,” Ames denied earnestly. “I don’t believe that ranting old rascal, anyway, not until I hear it from her own lips.”