ood watching them, having lost interest in the doves.

"Supposing I should drop a hundred-lire note, accidentally, and walk
away?" Hillard twisted the ends of his mustache.

"But first I should have to tell you, accidentally, where my mistress
is?"

"That, of course."

"A hundred-lire note!" To Bettina this was an enormous sum in these
unfortunate days. Her resolution wavered. "A hundred-lire note!" She
felt that she could make no strong defense against such an assault.

Hillard drew the note from his pocket and crinkled it. "A new dress and
bits of lace."

Bettina saw duty one way and avarice the other. Her mistress would never
know. Still, if she should find out that she, Bettina, had betrayed her!
Was a hundred-lire note worth the risk of losing her mistress? She began
to think deeply. At length she shook her head sorrowfully.

"No, signore. I dare not."

"But a hundred lire!"

"Ah, no, no!" Bettina put her hands over her ears.

"Then I shall follow you step by step, all the day long."

She searched for the jest in his eyes, but there was none. Yes, he would
do it. How was she to escape him? Her glance traveled here and there. By
the glass-shop on the corner she espied two _carabinieri_. There lay the
way.

"Do you see them?" she asked.

"The _carabinieri_? Yes." But he swore under his breath, as he
understood the drift of her inquiry.

"I shall ask them to hold you."

"But I have done nothing."

"Not yet, but you will attempt to follow me."

"Begin," he said, with a banter.

"What's the row, Jack?" Merrihew called out impatiently. Why didn't they
talk in a language a fellow could understand?

"Stay where you are, Dan." To Bettina, Hillard repeated: "Begin."

She dusted her hands of the corn and walked resolutely toward the
_carabinieri_. Hillard, equally resolute, followed, but with a roving
eye which took in all things ostensibly save Bettina. He had a plan by
which he proposed to circumvent any interference by the guardians. And
Bettina aided him, for she never turned her head till she stood at the
side of the _carabinieri_.

"Signori, this man is following me," she said. Hillard came on and would
have passed, but they stopped him.

"You are following the signorina," said one.

"I? What put such a preposterous idea into the lady's head?" Hillard
demanded indignantly.

For a moment the _carabinieri_ entertained some doubt.

"He is following me, I tell you," Bettina reiterated. "I do