"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.
Egisto in his black cotton coat and long white ap.r.o.n was surprised when his visitor, in reply to a question as to what he wished to eat, said:
"Please yourself. Something which is a speciality of the house. What is it?"
"Well, signore, our _zuppa alla Marinara_ is supposed to be the best in Rome," he replied. "And of fish, we have red mullet cooked in the Livornese fashion--and _carciofi alla guidea_."
"Good," the visitor answered, for Hubert knew Italian cooking and knew what to order. "A dozen _tartufi della mare_, the _ztappa, triglie_ and a _risotto_ with _fegatini_ of chicken."
Egis...o...b..wed. From that moment he held the stranger, though a foreigner, in great esteem, for he realised that he knew a good dinner.
And every waiter from Liverpool to Luxor or from Tunis to Trondhjem bows to the man who can discriminate on a menu. In what contempt, alas! are our own dear Cookites our Lunnites and our other various couponists held by the man in the black tie and white ap.r.o.n. I have heard a tourist order a boiled haddock in Florence, another whom I overheard demanded "fish and chips" in the Grand Rue in Constantinople, and I recollect quite well a man from Oldham--evidently a cotton operative--loudly call in broad Lancashire for roast beef and Yorkshire pudding in the Grand Hotel at Christiania.
Waldron descended the stairs and waited outside for some ten minutes or so until a taxi drove up and Her Highness, in the same shabby navy blue costume, and worn furs, descended and greeted him eagerly.
When alone together in the small bare room--for only a table and two rush-covered chairs were set upon the uncarpeted floor, with a cheap sideboard against the wall--he a.s.sisted her off with her jacket, and when she was seated, Hubert said:
"Now we shall be able to resume our little confidential chat that was so unfortunately interrupted the other night. This place is quite quiet, and the waiter cannot understand a single word of English."
"Yes," she sighed apprehensively. "I--I really hardly know what to tell you, Mr Waldron," she faltered, her big, expressive eyes fixed upon his. "I only know that you are my very good friend, and that I have been foolish--ah! terribly foolish."
The waiter at that moment entered with the _zuppa_, and after it was served, discreetly withdrew.
"You hinted something about blackmail. I hope Your Highness will tell me everything. No doubt I can a.s.sist you," he said in a low, intense voice when the door had closed.
"Not Highness, please--Lola," she protested, with a faint smile.
"I"m sorry," he exclaimed with an apologetic laugh. Then he added: "I suppose we must eat some of this in order to keep up appearances--eh?"
"I suppose so," she agreed, and they both commenced to eat.
"Of course," Waldron went on earnestly, "I don"t ask you in any spirit of mere inquisitiveness to tell me anything. I simply make the request because you have admitted that you are worried, and I believe that it may be in my power to a.s.sist you."
"Ah, Mr Waldron," she sighed, "I know I have been horribly indiscreet, and have greatly annoyed Their Majesties. Old Ghelardi has orders to watch me daily, but fortunately he is, after all, my friend. It is true that an agent of secret police is told off to follow me wherever I go, for my own personal protection, and because the anarchists have lately again threatened the Royal House. But our crafty old friend, whom you know as Jules Gigleux, is good enough to allow me much lat.i.tude, so that I know when the secret agent will be off duty, and can then escape his unwelcome attentions."
"With Ghelardi"s connivance?" Hubert suggested with a laugh. "Then he is not exactly your enemy?"
She nodded in the affirmative, a sweet and mischievous smile playing about her full red lips.
"True," she went on bitterly, a hard, haunted look in her eyes, "I am a Princess of Savoia, yet after all, am I not a girl like all the others about me? At home, at my mother"s castle at Mantova, I was always allowed my freedom to ride, to motor, to do whatever I liked. But since, alas! I"ve been compelled to live at the Palace my life has been so horribly circ.u.mscribed. I"m tired to death of the narrowness, the pomp, the tiresome etiquette, and the eternal best behaviour one has to put on. It"s all horrible. Only in the evenings when, with Ghelardi"s connivance, can I go out for an hour or so, do I breathe and enjoy the freedom to which ever since a child I have been accustomed. In Society, people declare that I outrage all the conventionalities, and they hold up their hands at exaggerated stories of my motor trips, or because I go incognita to a theatre or make visits to my friends. But they do not know, Mr Waldron, all that I have suffered. They cannot realise that the heart of a princess of the blood-royal is just the same as that of a girl of the people; that every woman loves to live, to enjoy herself, and to have her own freedom even though she may live in the eternal limelight and glitter of a brilliant Court like ours."
"But permit me to say that if half what I hear be true you are--well, shall we say just slightly injudicious in the way you go about incognita," he remarked.
"Ah! Yes, I know," she replied impatiently. "But I really can"t help it. Oh, how heartily I wish that I had never been a princess! The very t.i.tle grates upon my nerves."
"Why?" he asked.
"Because of the utter emptiness of it all--because," and her voice changed--"because of the tragedy of it all."
"Tragedy! What do you mean?" he echoed quickly, staring at her.
The waiter again entered interrupting, yet Waldron saw from the change in her countenance that there was something hidden in her heart which she desired to confide to him, but for some reason she dare not speak the truth.
As the man busied himself with the plates, recollections of that young Frenchman, Henri Pujalet, arose before the Englishman. He remembered the pa.s.sionate meeting beneath the palms, and her strict injunctions to exert every precaution so that Gigleux should suspect nothing.
Where was Pujalet? he wondered. Had their affection now cooled, and the secret lover, in ignorance of her real ident.i.ty and believing her to be poor and dependent upon her uncle, had with a Frenchman"s proverbial inconstancy returned to his own beloved boulevards?
From the Princess"s att.i.tude he felt convinced that it was so, and he had, in consequence, become much relieved.
When Egisto had bowed low and again disappeared, having changed the dishes, Waldron looked across at his pretty companion, and in a voice of deeper earnestness, said:
"May I not be permitted to know the nature of this tragedy? Remember, you alone know the tragedy of my own love. Is yours, I wonder, of a similar nature?"
She bit her lip, her wide-open eyes fixed upon his. He saw that her breath came and went in short quick gasps and that in her strained eyes was the light of unshed tears.
"Yes," she managed to respond.
There was silence for a few moments. She looked a sweet, pathetic little figure, for her countenance was very pale and apprehensive.
Then he bent across the table where she sat with her elbows upon it, her chin resting upon her hands, her plate untouched.
"And will you not confide in me? You know my secret and gave me certain advice which I heeded," he said.
"Ah! Then you have broken with your Spanish dancer--eh?" she asked quickly in a voice which surprised him. She laid a bitter accent upon the word "dancer."
"I have."
"Because she has, of course proved false to you--as I knew she would,"
declared Her Highness. "Yes, Mr Waldron, you have acted wisely, as one day you will most certainly be convinced. I heard all about it when I was visiting the Queen of Spain. The woman would have led you to ruin, as so many women have led the men who are the most honest and best in the world. It seems by the contrariness of Fate that the life of a good man should so often be linked with that of a bad woman--and vice versa?"
He nodded in acquiescence.
"Will you tell me nothing concerning yourself--your own difficulties and sorrows?" he asked, earnestly looking into her face. "I have been perfectly frank with you, and surely you know how proud I am to believe myself your friend."
"You are proud of my friendship merely because I happen to be a princess," she remarked sharply, glancing straight at him, her dark, well-marked brows slightly contracted.
"No, not for that, Your Highness," he protested. "When we first met you led me to believe that you were poor and dependent upon your uncle. Was my att.i.tude in any way different towards you then than it is now?"
"No. Ah, forgive me!" she replied quickly, stretching her little hand across to him in appeal. "I am, I know, too impetuous. It was foolish of me to utter such words, knowing them to be untrue! No, Mr Waldron, you have always shown yourself my friend, ever since that sunny morning when we first met on the deck of the _Arabia_. I deceived you, but under sheer compulsion, I a.s.sure you."
"I have forgiven that long, long ago," was his reply. "We are still friends and I, unfortunately, find you in distress. Yet you will not confide in me. That is what annoys me."
"I regret if my silence irritates you in the least," was her low reply, her face growing very grave. "But have you not, in your own heart, certain secrets which you do not desire divulged to anyone--certain private matters which concern your own life--perhaps your own honour?"
"Well, if you put it to me in that fashion, I cannot deny it," he said.
"I suppose we all have, more or less."