cur to
him to take a cab and drive to the hotel. He remained in distress on
the Piazza like a lost dog, thinking vaguely of the best way of getting
something to eat at once.

Suddenly he remembered his twenty-franc piece. He explained to me that
he had that piece of French gold for something like three years. He used
to carry it about with him as a sort of reserve in case of accident.
Anybody is liable to have his pocket picked--a quite different thing
from a brazen and insulting robbery.

The monumental arch of the Galleria Umberto faced him at the top of
a noble flight of stairs. He climbed these without loss of time, and
directed his steps towards the Cafe Umberto. All the tables outside
were occupied by a lot of people who were drinking. But as he wanted
something to eat, he went inside into the cafe, which is divided into
aisles by square pillars set all round with long looking-glasses.
The Count sat down on a red plush bench against one of these pillars,
waiting for his risotto. And his mind reverted to his abominable
adventure.

He thought of the moody, well-dressed young man, with whom he had
exchanged glances in the crowd around the bandstand, and who, he felt
confident, was the robber. Would he recognize him again? Doubtless. But
he did not want ever to see him again. The best thing was to forget this
humiliating episode.

The Count looked round anxiously for the coming of his risotto, and,
behold! to the left against the wall--there sat the young man. He was
alone at a table, with a bottle of some sort of wine or syrup and a
carafe of iced water before him. The smooth olive cheeks, the red lips,
the little jet-black moustache turned up gallantly, the fine black eyes
a little heavy and shaded by long eyelashes, that peculiar expression of
cruel discontent to be seen only in the busts of some Roman emperors--it
was he, no doubt at all. But that was a type. The Count looked away
hastily. The young officer over there reading a paper was like that,
too. Same type. Two young men farther away playing draughts also
resembled--

The Count lowered his head with the fear in his heart of being
everlastingly haunted by the vision of that young man. He began to
eat his risotto. Presently he heard the young man on his left call the
waiter in a bad-tempered tone.

At the call, not only his own waiter, but two other idle waiters
belonging to a quite different row of tables, rushed towards him with
obsequious alacrity