“Oh!” she laughed again. “I was at the Hotel du Lac yesterday; I saw Costantina.”
“You saw Costantina!—Ah, signorina, is she not beautiful? Ze mos’ beautiful in all ze world? But ver’ unkind signorina. Yes, she laugh at me; she smile at ozzer men, at soldiers wif uniforms.” He sighed profoundly. “But I love her just ze same, always from ze first moment I see her. It was washday, signorina, by ze lac. I climb over ze wall and talk wif her, but she make fun of me—ver’ unkind. I go away ver’ sad. No use, I say, she like dose soldiers best. But I see her again; I hear her laugh—it sound like angels singing—I say, no, I can not go away; I stay here and make her love me. Yes, I do everysing she ask—but everysing! I wear earrings; I make myself into a fool just to please zat Costantina.”
He leaned forward and looked into her eyes. A slow red flush crept over Constance’s face and she turned her head away and looked across the water.
Mr. Wilder, in full Alpine regalia, stepped out upon the terrace and viewed the beauty of the morning with a prophetic eye. Miss Hazel followed in his wake; she wore a lavender dimity. And suddenly it occurred to Tony’s slow moving masculine perception that neither lavender dimity nor white muslin were fabrics fit for mountain climbing.
Constance slipped down from her parapet and hurried to meet them.
“Good-morning, Aunt Hazel. Morning, Dad! You look beautiful! There’s nothing so becoming to a man as knickerbockers—especially if he’s a little stout.—You’re late,” she added with a touch of severity. “Breakfast has been waiting half an hour and Tony fifteen minutes.”
She turned back toward the donkey-man who was standing, hat in hand, respectfully waiting orders. “Oh, Tony, I forgot to tell you; we shall not need Beppo and the donkeys to-day. You and my father are going alone.”
“You no want to climb Monte Maggiore—ver’ beautiful mountain.” There was disappointment, reproach, rebellion in his tone.
“We have made inquiries and my aunt thinks it too long a trip. Without the donkeys you can cross by boat, and that cuts off three miles.”
“As you please, signorina.” He turned away.
Constance looked after him with a shade of remorse. When this plan of sending her father and Tony alone had occurred to her as she sailed homeward yesterday from the Hotel du Lac, it had seemed a humorous and fitting retribution. The young man had been just a trifle too sure of her interest; the episode of the hotel register must not go unpunished. But—it was a beautiful morning, a long empty day stretched before her, and Monte Maggiore looked alluring; there was no pursuit, for the moment, which she enjoyed as much as donkey-riding. Oh yes, she was spiting herself as well as Tony; but considering the circumstances the sacrifice seemed necessary.
When the Farfalla drifted up ready to take the mountain-climbers, Miss Hazel suggested (Constance possessed to a large degree the diplomatic faculty of making other people propose what she herself had decided on) that she and her niece cross with them. Tony was sulky and Constance could not forego the pleasure of baiting him further.
They put in at the village, on their way, for the morning mail; Mr. Wilder wished his paper, even at the risk of not beginning the ascent before the sun was high. Giuseppe brought back from the post, among other matters, a letter for Constance. The address was in a dashing, angular hand that pretty thoroughly covered the envelope. Had she not been so intent on the writing herself, she would have noted Tony’s astonished stare as he passed it to her.
“Why!” she exclaimed, “here’s a letter from Nannie Hilliard, postmarked Lucerne.”
“Lucerne!” Miss Hazel echoed her surprise. “I thought they were to be in England for the summer?”
“They were—the last I heard.” Constance ripped the letter open and read it aloud.
Ladies and gentleman in gondola-like boat, with man in peasant dress standing in stern “Constance ripped the letter open and read it aloud.”
“Dear Constance: You’ll doubtless be surprised to hear from us in Switzerland instead of in England, and to learn further, that in the course of a week, we shall arrive at Valedolmo en route for the Dolomites. Jerry Junior at the last moment decided to come with us, and you know what a man is when it comes to European travel. Instead of taking two months comfortably to England, as Aunt Kate and I had planned, we did the whole of the British Isles in ten days, and Holland and France at the same breathless rate.
“Jerry says he holds the record for the Louvre; he struck a six-mile pace at the entrance, and by looking neither to the right nor the left he did the whole building in forty-three minutes.
“You can imagine the exhausted state Aunt Kate and I are in after travelling five weeks with him. We simply struck in Switzerland and sent him on to Italy alone. I had hoped he would meet us in Valedolmo, but we have been detained here longer than we expected, and now he’s rushed off again—where to, goodness only knows; we don’t.
“Anyway, Aunt Kate and I shall land in Valedolmo about the end of the week. I am dying to see you; I have some beautiful news that’s too complicated to write. We’ve engaged rooms at the Hotel du Lac—I hope it’s decent; it’s the only place starred in Baedeker.
“Aunt Kate wishes to be remembered to your father and Miss Hazel.
“Yours ever,
Nan Hilliard.
“P. S. I’m awfully sorry not to bring Jerry; I know you’d adore him.”
She returned the letter to its envelope and looked up.
“Now isn’t that abominable?” she demanded.
“Abominable!” Miss Hazel was scandalized. “My dear, I think it’s delightful.”
“Oh, yes—I mean about Jerry Junior; I’ve been trying for six years to get hold of that man.”
Tony behind them made a sudden movement that let out nearly a yard of rope, and the Farfalla listed heavily to starboard.
“Tony!” Constance threw over her shoulder. “Don’t you know enough to sit still when you are holding the sheet?”
“Scusi,” he murmured. The sulky look had vanished from his face; he wore an expression of alert attention.
“Of course we shall have them at the villa,” said Miss Hazel. “And we shall have to get some new dishes. Elizabetta has already broken so many plates that she has to stop and wash them between courses.”
Constance looked dreamily across the lake; she appeared to be thinking. “I wonder,” she inquired finally, “if Jerry Junior knew we were here in Valedolmo?”
Her father emerged from the columns of his paper.
“Of course he knew it, and having heard what a dangerous young person you were, he said to himself, ‘I’d better keep out.’”
“I wish I knew. It would make the score against him considerably heavier.”
“So there is already a score? I hadn’t supposed that the game had begun.”
She nodded.
“Six years ago—but he doesn’t know it. Yes, Dad,” her tone was melodramatic, “for six years I’ve been waiting for Jerry Junior and planning my revenge. And now, when I have him almost in my grasp, he eludes me again!”
