“Are the Pescobaldis leaving to-morrow?”
“Yes, and it’s because Beppo can’t get the room he wants at the Hidalgo Hotel that he is thinking of honouring his mother by paying us a short visit!”
Lily could not help a sarcastic inflection coming into her voice. She liked Beppo very much, but she had no sympathy with his love of luxury, and of having everything “just so” about him. After all, what was good enough for his father and mother—to say nothing of herself—ought to be good enough for him!
“So, so,” said M. Popeau thoughtfully. “The young Count is not going away?”
Lily looked around quickly. M. Popeau spoke in a singular, preoccupied tone.
“I had occasion to-day to look through the private telegrams which have arrived at Monte Carlo in the last twelve hours——” he hesitated, and then added slowly, significantly: “and I saw a telegram which I believe contained news which more than accounts for the Countess being so joyous to-night.”
“Really?” said Lily uncomfortably. “How very strange.”
Somehow it shocked her very much that M. Popeau should have the right to look at private telegrams sent through the Post Office. It seemed to her a very improper thing to happen! No doubt the telegram concerned the Countess’s mysterious money matters—those money matters concerning which the Marchesa Pescobaldi had shown such intense interest and curiosity.
“Do you know anything of such a telegram?” asked the Frenchman.
He asked the unexpected question very gravely, and as Lily shook her head, a look of relief came over his face.