“I fear it will be twelve o’clock, Uncle Angelo. But Cristina is going to sit up for me. It is very kind of her to do so.”
She waited, and then added, a little shyly: “I am so very fond of Cristina, Uncle Angelo!”
“You are right to be that,” he said feelingly. “She is a most excellent woman.”
“She is so fond of Beppo,” said Lily.
“Yes—yes, indeed; she could not love him more if she were his own mother! There is nothing—nothing that Cristina would not do for my Beppo——”
There came a tone of real emotion into the Count’s voice, and the girl, looking round at him, told herself how very strange it was that the same man could be so frank and so deceitful, so cold in manner and at the same time such a devoted father. He now looked curiously pale and puffy, as well as very, very tired.
“I wish Beppo could have stayed on in Monte Carlo a little longer,” she said kindly.
The Count looked at her fixedly. “I hope,” he said slowly, “that Beppo will stay in Monte Carlo for a considerable time.”
Lily was surprised to hear him say this. Surely Beppo was going back to Rome at once? His own and his friends’ rooms at the Hotel Hidalgo were already let to another set of people from two days hence.