e lines, as if his gaze could warm
into evidence some sympathetic ink, or compel a cryptic sub-intention
from the text itself.

Well, to be sure, the text had cryptic subintentions; but these were as
far as may be from any that Peter was in a position to conjecture. How
could he guess, for instance, that the letter was an instrument, and he
the victim, of a Popish machination? How could he guess that its writer
knew as well as he did who was the author of "A Man of Words"?

And then, all at once, a shade of trouble of quite another nature fell
upon his mind. He frowned for a while in silent perplexity. At last he
addressed himself to Marietta.

"Have you ever dined with a cardinal?" he asked.

"No, Signorino," that patient sufferer replied.

"Well, I'm in the very dickens of a quandary--son' proprio nel dickens
d'un imbarazzo." he informed her.

"Dickens--?" she repeated.

"Si--Dickens, Carlo, celebre autore inglese. Why not?" he asked.

Marietta gazed with long-suffering eyes at the horizon.

"Or, to put it differently," Peter resumed, "I've come all the way from
London with nothing better than a dinner jacket in my kit."

"Dina giacca? Cosa e?" questioned Marietta.

"No matter what it is--the important thing is what it is n't. It is n't
a dress-coat."

"Non e un abito nero," said Marietta, seeing that he expected her to say
something.

"Well--? You perceive my difficulty. Do you think you could make me
one?" said Peter.

"Make the Signorino a dress-coat? I? Oh, no, Signorino." Marietta shook
her head.

"I feared as much," he acknowledged. "Is there a decent tailor in the
village?"

"No, Signorino."

"Nor in the whole length and breadth of this peninsula, if you come to
that. Well, what am I to do? How am I to dine with a cardinal? Do you
think a cardinal would have a fit if a man were to dine with him in a
dina giacca?"

"Have a fit? Why should he have a fit, Signorino?" Marietta blinked.

"Would he do anything to the man? Would he launch the awful curses of
the Church at him, for instance?"

"Mache, Signorino!" She struck an attitude that put to scorn his
apprehensions.

"I see," said Peter. "You think there is no danger? You advise me to
brazen the dina giacca out, to swagger it off?"

"I don't understand, Signorino," said Marietta.

"To understand is to forgive," said he; "and yet you can't trifle with
English servants like this, though they ought to understand, ought n't
they? In an