lian night breeze.

Constance stepped out from the door as Tony emerged from the bushes. She
regarded him in startled surprise; he was still in some slight disarray
from his encounter with the lieutenant.

"May I speak to you, Miss Wilder? I won't detain you but a moment."

She nodded and kept on, her heart thumping absurdly. He had received the
letter of course; and there would be consequences. She paused at the top
of the water steps.

"You go on," she called to the others, "and pick me up on your way back.
Tony wants to see me about something, and I don't like to keep Mrs.
Eustace and Nannie waiting."

Giuseppe pushed off and Constance was left standing alone on the water
steps. She turned as Tony approached; there was a touch of defiance in
her manner.

"Well?"

He came to her side and leaned carelessly against the parapet, his eyes
on the _Farfalla_ as she tossed and dipped in the wash of the _Regina
Margarita_ which was just puffing out from the village landing. Constance
watched him, slightly taken aback; she had expected him to be angry,
sulky, reproachful--certainly not nonchalant. When he finally brought his
eyes from the water, his expression was mildly melancholy.

"Signorina, I have come to say good bye. It is very sad, but tomorrow, I
too--" he waved his hand toward the steamer--"shall be a passenger."

"You are going away from Valedolmo?"

He nodded.

"Unfortunately, yes. I should like to stay, but--" he shrugged--"life
isn't all play, Miss Wilder. Though one would like to be a donkey-man
forever, one only may be for a summer's holiday. I am your debtor for a
unique and pleasant experience."

She studied his face without speaking. Did it mean that he had got the
letter and was hurt, or did it perhaps mean that he had got the letter
and did not care to appear as Jerry Junior? That he enjoyed the play so
long as he could remain incognito and stop it where he pleased, but that
he had no mind to let it drift into reality? Very possibly it meant--she
flushed at the thought--that he divined Nannie's plot, and refused also
to consider the fourth candidate.

She laughed and dropped into their usual jargon.

"And the young American man, Signor Abraham Lincoln, will he come
tomorrow for tea?"

"Ah, signorina, he is desolated, but it is not possible. He has received
a letter and he must go; he has stopped too long in Valedolmo. Tomorrow
morning early, he and I togever, we sail away to Austria." Hi