re.
"What an idea! Oh! la la! _Jamais_."

I smiled. Mademoiselle was extremely beautiful. No woman I had ever met
possessed such wonderful eyes as hers.

"_Au revoir, mon cher_," she said. "And a pleasant time to you till we
meet again." Then as I mounted on the car and traversed the big Piazza
del Duomo, before the Cathedral, she waved her hand to me in farewell.

It was, therefore, without surprise that, sitting in the hall of the
hotel about five o'clock one afternoon, I watched her in an elegant
white gown descending the stairs, followed by a neat French maid in
black.

Quickly I sprang up, bowed, and greeted her in French before a dozen or
so of the idling guests.

As we walked across to Pancaldi's baths she told her new maid to go on
in front, and in a few quick words explained.

"I arrived direct from Paris this morning. Here, I am the Princess
Helen of Dornbach-Laxenburg of the Ringstrasse, in Vienna, the
Schloss Kirchbuechl, on the Drave, and Avenue des Champs Elysees,
Paris, a Frenchwoman married to an Austrian. My husband, a man much
older than myself, will arrive here in a few days."

"And the maid?"

"She knows nothing to the contrary. She has been with me only a
fortnight. Now you must speak of me in the hotel. Say that you knew me
well at Monte Carlo, Rome, Carlsbad, and Aix; that you have stayed at
Kirchbuechl, and have dined at our house in Paris. Talk of our enormous
wealth, and all that, and to-morrow invite me for a run on the car."

"Very well--Princess," I laughed. "But what's the new scheme--eh?"

"At present nothing has been definitely settled. I expect Bindo in a few
days, but he will appear to us as a stranger--a complete stranger. At
present all I wish to do is to create a sensation--you understand? A
foreign princess is always popular at once, and I believe my arrival is
already known all over the hotel. But it is you who will help me,
M'sieur Ewart. You are the wealthy Englishman who is here with his
motor-car, and who is one of my intimate friends--you understand?"

"Well," I said, with some hesitation. "Don't you think all this kind of
thing very risky? Candidly, I expect before very long we shall all find
ourselves under arrest."

She laughed heartily at my fears.

"But, in any case, you would not suffer. You are simply Ewart, the
Count's chauffeur."

"I know. But at this moment I'm posing here as the owner of the car, and
living upon part of the proceeds of that little