The girl dismissed the matter with a polite gesture.

“It was already broken,” and then she waited with an air of grave attention until he should state his errand.

“I—I came—” He paused and glanced about vaguely; he could not at the moment think of any adequate reason to account for his coming.

“Yes?”

Her eyes studied him with what appeared at once a cool and an amused scrutiny. He felt himself growing red beneath it.

“Can I do anything for you?” she prompted with the kind desire of putting him at his ease.

“Thank you—” He grasped at the first idea that presented itself. “I’m stopping at the Hotel du Lac and Gustavo, you know, told me there was a villa somewhere around here that belongs to Prince Someone or Other. If you ring at the gate and give the gardener two francs and a visiting card, he will let you walk around and look at the trees.”

“I see!” said the girl, “and so now you are looking for the gate?” Her tone suggested that she suspected him of trying to avoid both it and the two francs. “Prince Sartorio-Crevelli’s villa is about half a mile farther on.”

“Ah, thank you,” he bowed a second time, and then added out of the desperate need of saying something, “There’s a cedar of Lebanon in it and an India rubber plant from South America.”

“Indeed!”

She continued to observe him with polite interest, though she made no move to carry on the conversation.

“You—are an American?” he asked at length.

“Oh, yes,” she agreed easily. “Gustavo knows that.”

 He shifted his weight.

“I am an American too,” he observed.

“Really?” The girl leaned forward and examined him more closely, an innocent, candid, wholly detached look in her eyes. “From your appearance I should have said you were German—most of the foreigners who visit Valedolmo are German.”

“Well, I’m not,” he said shortly. “I’m American.”

 Prev. P 11/107 next