Chapter Sixteen.
Her Royal Highness.
Soon after eight o’clock Hubert descended from a rickety vettura outside the great dark Pantheon, and passing across the piazza, plunged into a maze of narrow, obscure, ill-lit streets until he came to a small quiet restaurant—a place hidden away in the back thoroughfares of the Eternal City, and known only to the populace.
The place which he entered was long and bare, with whitewashed walls and red plush settees—an unpretentious little place devoid of decoration or of comfort.
Upon the empty tables stood vases of paper flowers, big serviettes, and a single knife and fork lay in each place, for the Italian, though he is fond of good food and is usually a gourmet, takes no notice of his surroundings so long as the fare is well-cooked and palatable.
Upon each table stood the big rush-covered fiasco of Tuscan red wine in its silver-plated stand, and as Hubert entered, the padrone, a short, stout man, came forward to greet him. Dinner was long since over, and the proprietor believed his visitor to be one of those stray foreigners who sometimes drifted in at odd hours because his establishment was a noted one in Rome.
He was surprised when Hubert, speaking in excellent Italian, explained that he was expecting a lady, and that he wished to dine tête-à-tête.
“Egisto,” he called to the elderly, under-sized waiter, “a private room for the signore. A lady will call at half-past eight.”
“Si, signore,” was the man’s prompt reply, and at once he conducted the Englishman upstairs to a small stuffy room on the first floor overlooking the little piazza, where he began setting out the table for two.