Constance laughed and advanced a hesitating step across the threshold. Tony dropped his paper and sprang to his feet, his face, assuming a shade of pink only less vivid than the oleanders. She shook her head sorrowfully.
‘I don’t need to tell you, Tony, how shocked we are to find you in such a place. Our trust has been rudely shaken; we had not supposed we were harbouring a deserter.’
Mr. Wilder stepped forward and held out his hand; there was a twinkle in his eye, which he struggled manfully to suppress.
‘Nonsense, Tony, we don’t believe a word of it. You a deserter from the Italian army? It’s preposterous! Where are your naturalization papers?’
‘Thank you, Mr. Wilder, but I don’t happen to have my papers with me—I trust it won’t be necessary to produce them. You see’—his glance rested entirely on Mr. Wilder; he studiously overlooked Constance’s presence—‘this Angelo Fresi, the fellow they are after, got into a quarrel over a gambling debt and struck a superior officer. To avoid being court-martialled he lit out; it happened a month ago in Milan and they’ve been looking for him ever since. Now last night I had the misfortune to tip Lieutenant Carlo di Ferara over into a ditch. The matter was entirely accidental, and I regretted it very much. I, of course, apologized. But what did the lieutenant do but take it into his head that I, being an assaulter of superior officers, was, by a priori reasoning, this Angelo Fresi in disguise. Accordingly’—he waved his hand around the room—‘you see me here.’
‘It’s an imposition! Depriving an American citizen of his liberty on any such trumped-up charge as that! I’ll telegraph the consul in Milan. I’ll——’
‘Oh, don’t trouble. I’ll get off this afternoon; they’ve sent for some one to identify me, and if he doesn’t succeed, I don’t see how they can hold me. In the meantime, I’m comfortable enough.’
Mr. Wilder’s eye wandered about the room. ‘H’m, it isn’t bad for a jail! Got everything you need—tobacco, papers?’ What’s this, New York Sun only ten days old?’ He picked it up and plunged into the headlines.
Constance turned from the window and glanced casually at Tony.
‘You didn’t go to Austria after all?’