From where the diplomat stood beside the Princess he could see far away across the plain to where the great dome of St. Peter’s rose in the blue-grey mists of the panorama, while on the other hand lay the ancient Tusculum, and the range of blue hills dominated by the Corbio—as the Italians call the Rocca Priora—while a little to the right shone the Lake of Albano, lying like a mirror in its basin in the sunshine.
Lola had arrived there first, but as he came swinging along the path a flush of pleasure mounted to her pale cheeks, and she put out her gloved hand, greeting him warmly.
Dressed in dark grey, and wearing a magnificent set of blue fox, she presented a very different appearance to that of the previous night when she had worn the old dress and close-fitting bonnet of Renata’s.
Hubert Waldron thought he had never seen her looking so charming, yet he wondered why she had made that appointment so far away from Rome. He was still wondering, too, why that letter of Henry Pujalet’s should have had such an effect upon her. With her last strenuous effort, however, she had destroyed it. Why?
“Your man seemed awfully dense this morning,” the Princess laughed. “When I telephoned he thought it was the manageress of your fishmonger, and told me that you required nothing to-day! Your English servants are horribly abrupt, I assure you.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said, hastening to apologise. “I fear abruptness is one of his failings, but he is honest. I’ve reprimanded him lots of times.”
“Ah! I expect he hears a good many female voices on the ’phone,” she laughed, teasing him; “and he has orders to what you call it in English, to choke them off—eh?” and she laughed.
Together they walked along the gravelled path to where, beneath a tall cypress, was an old semicircular stone seat, one of those placed there when the great cardinal laid out the grounds of his princely villa. Upon that they seated themselves when suddenly Her Highness, with an anxious look upon her face, turned to her companion and said, still speaking in English.
“I fear that we may be watched, therefore I made this appointment with you here.”
“Watched?” he echoed. “Who by? Old Ghelardi, I suppose?”