‘It might have been.’ Her face was vague.
‘Of the cavalry?’
‘Si, signorina, of the cavalry—and very handsome.’
Constance laughed. ‘Well, the plot thickens! Dad, you must come to Tony’s hearing this afternoon, and put it tactfully to our friend the lieutenant that we don’t like to have our donkey-man snatched away without our permission.’ She turned back to the jailoress. ‘And now, where is the man? We should like to speak with him.’
‘It is against the orders, but perhaps—I have already permitted the head waiter from the Hotel du Lac to carry him newspapers and cigarettes. He says that the man Antonio is in reality an American nobleman from New York, who merely plays at being a donkey-driver for diversion, and that unless he is set at liberty immediately a ship will come with cannon, but—we all know Gustavo, signorina.’
Constance nodded and laughed.
‘You have reason! We all know Gustavo—may we go right up?’
The jailoress called the jailor. They talked aside; the two-franc piece was produced as evidence. The jailor with a great show of caution got out a bunch of keys and motioned them to follow. Up two flights and down a long corridor with peeling frescoes on the walls—nymphs and cupids and garlands of roses; most incongruous decorations for a jail—at last they paused before a heavy oak door. Their guide tried two wrong keys, swore softly as each failed to turn, and finally with an exclamation of triumph produced the right one. He swung the door wide and stepped back with a bow.
A large room was revealed, brick-floored and somewhat scanty as to furniture, but with a view—an admirable view, if one did not mind it being checked off into iron squares. The most conspicuous object in the room, however, was its occupant, as he sat, in an essentially American attitude, with his chair tipped back and his feet on the table. A cloud of tobacco smoke and a wide-spread copy of a New York paper concealed him from too impertinent gaze. He did not raise his head at the sound of the opening door, but contented himself with growling——
‘Confound your impudence! You might at least knock before you come in.’