Feistmantel had frequently during these confessions admonished the Princess to greater discretion by a touch of her foot beneath the table: of one of these hints Sydow's boot had been the recipient. But when she found that she could thus make no impression upon her charge the Viennese interposed with some temper: "Pray, Baron Sydow, discount all this talk some fifty per cent. You must not believe that I would take any young girl intrusted to my care where it was not proper that she should go."
"I know nothing about proper or improper: I only know what is amusing and what is tiresome," the Princess said, with a laugh, "and we went everywhere. Feistmantel is putting on airs because of my exalted family, but do not you believe her, Herr von Sydow. We saw 'Ma Camarade,' and 'Niniche,' and we even went one evening to the Café des Ambassadeurs. Eh?" And she pinched her companion's ear.
"But, Baron Sydow, do not allow yourself to be imposed upon," Feistmantel exclaimed, almost beside herself. "The Café des Ambassadeurs,--why, that is a café chantant. There is not a word of truth in all her nonsense."
"Not true? oh, but it is," the Princess retorted, quite at her ease. "Of course it was a café chantant, and the singer sang 'Estelle, où est ta flanelle?'--it was too funny; but I can sing it just like her. I practised it that very evening. I must sing it to you some day, Herr von Sydow,--that is, when we are better acquainted. Oh, is there no café chantant in Florence to which you could take us?"
"But, Princess----!" exclaimed Feistmantel.
"Why, a gentleman took us to the Café des Ambassadeurs, a man whose acquaintance we made in the hotel," Dorothea ran on. "He was an American,--a Mr. Higgs: he came from Connecticut, and dealt in cheeses. He was very rich, and he sent us tickets for the theatre. Afterwards he wanted to marry me: I liked him very well, and would have accepted him, but my brother said he was no match for me. Well, I did not break my heart, but I should have liked to marry him for all that. We Princesses Ilm have the right, it is true, to marry crowned heads, but I never mean to avail myself of it. If I were an Empress I should always travel incognito. As soon as I am of age I shall marry a chimney-sweeper--if he is a millionaire, or if I fall in love with him."
"Both contingencies seem highly probable," Sydow observed, laughing. It was the only remark he allowed himself during the conversation,--a conversation which took place in the reading-room of the Washington Hotel on the first evening of his stay there.
After the Princess had finished her confessions, she went to the window, and looked out upon the Arno. For a while she was perfectly silent; but when Alma Feistmantel, recovering from her dismay, began to invent all sorts of falsehoods with which to impress Sydow, Dorothea quietly turned to him and said, "Herr von Sydow, will you not take a walk with us? Florence is so lovely at night!"
The next day he drove with the ladies to Fiesole. He sat on the front seat of a very uncomfortable droschky and felt as happy as a king.
It was the middle of April, and an upright crest of white and purple iris crowned the white wall bordering the crooked road leading to the famous old town. Here and there the rose-bushes trailed their blossoming branches in the dust. Barefooted Italian children, with dishevelled hair and glowing eyes tossed nosegays into the carriage and offered their straw wares to the ladies with persistent entreaties to buy. How many liri and fifty-centesimi pieces Sydow threw away on that wonderful day! The more he gave the rein to his liberality the longer grew the train of children, laughing, gesticulating, all pretty, with light in their eyes and flowers in their hands. Suddenly the driver shouted to some one who would not get out of the way. Sydow sprang out of the droschky and saw creeping along the dusty road a pair of wretched beggars, old and bent, their weary feet wrapped in rags. The sight of anything so miserable on the lovely spring day cut him to the heart. He could do no less than toss them some money.