"I suppose Valedolmo _is_ stupid for a man; but why don"t you try mountain climbing? Everybody finds that diverting. There"s a guide here who speaks English--really comprehensible English. He"s engaged for tomorrow, but after that I dare say he"ll be free. Gustavo can tell you about him."
She nodded and smiled and turned down the arbor.
The young man stood where she left him, with folded arms, watching her pink gown as it receded down the long sun-flecked alley hung with purple and green. He waited until it had been swallowed up in the yellow doorway; then he fetched a deep breath and strolled to the water-wall.
After a few moments" prophetic contemplation of the mountain across the lake, he threw back his head with a quick amused laugh, and got out a cigarette and lighted it.
CHAPTER IX
As Constance emerged at the other end of the arbor, Gustavo, who had been nodding on the bench beside the door, sprang to his feet, consternation in his att.i.tude.
"Signorina!" he stammered. "You come from ze garden?"
She nodded in her usual off-hand manner and handed him the basket.
"Eggs, Gustavo--two dozen if you can spare them. I am sorry always to be wanting so many, but--" she sighed, "eggs are so breakable!"
Gustavo rolled his eyes to heaven in silent thanksgiving. She had not, it was evident, run across the American, and the cat was still safely in the bag; but how much longer it could be kept there, the saints alone knew.
He was feeling--very properly--guilty in regard to this latest escapade; but what can a defenceless waiter do in the hands of an impetuous young American whose pockets are stuffed with silver lire and five-franc notes?
"Two dozen? Certainly, signorina. _Subitissimo_!" He took the basket and hurried to the kitchen.
Constance occupied the interval with the polyglot parrot of the courtyard. The parrot, since she had last conversed with him, had acquired several new expressions in the English tongue. As Gustavo reappeared with the eggs, she confronted him sternly.
"Have you been teaching this bird English? I am surprised!"
"No, signorina. It was--it was--" Gustavo mopped his brow. "He jus" pick it up."
"I"m sorry that the Hotel du Lac has _guests_ that use such language; it"s very shocking."
"_Si_, signorina."
"By the way, Gustavo, how does it happen that that young American man who left last week is still here?"
Gustavo nearly dropped the eggs.
"I just saw him in the garden with a book--I am sure it was the same young man. What is he doing all this time in Valedolmo?"
Gustavo"s eyes roved wildly until they lighted on the tennis court.
"He--he stay, signorina, to play lawn tennis wif me, but he go tomorrow."
"Oh, he is going tomorrow?--What"s his name, Gustavo?"
She put the question indifferently while she stooped to pet a tortoise-sh.e.l.l cat that was curled asleep on the bench.
"His name?" Gustavo"s face cleared. "I get ze raygeester; you read heem yourself."
He darted into the bureau and returned with a black book.
"_Ecco_, signorina!" spreading it on the table before her.
His alacrity should have aroused her suspicions; but she was too intent on the matter in hand. She turned the pages and paused at the week"s entries; Rudolph Ziegelmann und Frau, Berlin; and just beneath, in bold black letters that stretched from margin to margin, Abraham Lincoln, U.
S. A.
Gustavo hovered above anxiously watching her face; he had been told that this would make everything right, that Abraham Lincoln was an exceedingly respectable name. Constance"s expression did not change. She looked at the writing for fully three minutes, then she opened her purse and looked inside. She laid the money for the eggs in a pile on the table, and took out an extra lira which she held in her hand.
"Gustavo," she asked, "do you think that you _could_ tell me the truth?"
"Signorina!" he said reproachfully.
"How did that name get there?"
"He write it heemself!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: "She turned the pages and paused at the week"s entries."]
"Yes, I dare say he did--but it doesn"t happen to be his name. Oh, I"m not blind; I can see plainly enough that he has scratched out his own name underneath."
Gustavo leaned forward and affected to examine the page. "It was a li"l"
blot, signorina; he scratch heem out."
"Gustavo!" Her tone was despairing. "Are you incapable of telling the truth? That young man"s name is no more Abraham Lincoln than Victor Emmanuel II. When did he write that and why?"
Gustavo"s eyes were on the lira; he broke down and told the truth.
"Yesterday night, signorina. He say, "ze next time zat Signorina Americana who is beautiful as ze angels come to zis hotel she look in ze raygeester, an" I haf it feex ready"."
"Oh, he said that, did he?"
"_Si_, signorina."
"And his real name that comes on his letters?"
"Jayreem Ailyar, signorina.
"Say it again, Gustavo." She c.o.c.ked her head.
He gathered himself together for a supreme effort. He rolled his r"s; he shouted until the courtyard reverberated.
"Meestair-r Jay-r-reem Ailyar-r!"
Constance shook her head.
"Sounds like Hungarian--at least the way you p.r.o.nounce it. But anyway it"s of no consequence; I merely asked out of idle curiosity. And Gustavo--" She still held the lira--"if he asks you if I looked in this register, what are you going to say?"