Lady Blakeney ran into the room, calling excitedly: "My dear, the post is in."
"Well! Carefully, Esmé." Esmé flung accent on the name. "Well?"
"The post! Cyril has written; oh, it's splendid."
The nurse bent over her charge, crooning to it, but there was a curious look on her face.
"Oh, carefully!" said Esmé, shutting the door, going out on to the old marble terrace. "Carefully. One never knows what these people understand. You must not take the letters."
"I had to, Esmé. He's caught some boat. He will be in London at once. He—Cyril! He will hear—see the papers. We must leave at once, to-morrow. I am wiring to Paris, and to the nurse in London. Wiring for rooms. Ah! the doctor, prying at us."
But little Luigi was not prying. He came to advise, to counsel caution for the fair English miladi. She must not run about so much.
"There was a strain," he said. "Madame was not well—no, not well at all."
His dark eyes looked at Esmé's drawn face; he grunted thoughtfully.
"Madame is not so strong," he said. "It is but three weeks—but three, and she is up and about."