Embassy attending to dispatches broughtfrom Downing Street by the King's messenger who had arrived in Rome thatmorning, and who was due to return to London at midnight.
For two arduous hours he was closeted with the Ambassador going throughthe various matters requiring attention, including several questionsregarding the Consulates of Florence and Venice. A question had arisenin London of the advisability of reducing the Florence Consulate-Generalto a Vice-Consulate and making Livorno a Consulate-General in its place.Florence was without trade, while Livorno--or Leghorn as it is known tothe English--was full of shipping and other interests. Florence had toolong been practically a sinecure, and its Consul-General a picturesquefigure, hence the question afoot--the Ambassador being asked to writehis opinion upon the proposed reduction.
Durrant, the Councillor of Embassy, being absent in England on leave, itdevolved upon Waldron to attend to the clerical duties, and it wasnearly six o'clock ere he had sealed the last dispatch and placed it inthe small Foreign Office bag of white canvas.
Then the Ambassador questioned him upon the latest phase of his inquiry,but to all questions he was discreetly evasive--even to his own Chief.
Hubert Waldron was never optimistic, though he felt that already he wason the track of the thief.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
HER ROYAL HIGHNESS.
Soon after eight o'clock Hubert descended from a rickety _vettura_outside the great dark Pantheon, and passing across the piazza, plungedinto a maze of narrow, obscure, ill-lit streets until he came to a smallquiet restaurant--a place hidden away in the back thoroughfares of theEternal City, and known only to the populace.
The place which he entered was long and bare, with whitewashed walls andred plush settees--an unpretentious little place devoid of decoration orof comfort.
Upon the empty tables stood vases of paper flowers, big serviettes, anda single knife and fork lay in each place, for the Italian, though he isfond of good food and is usually a gourmet, takes no notice of hissurroundings so long as the fare is well-cooked and palatable.
Upon each table stood the big rush-covered _fiasco_ of Tuscan red winein its silver-plated stand, and as Hubert entered, the _padrone_, ashort, stout man, came forward to greet him. Dinner was long sinceover, and the proprietor believed his visitor to be one of those strayforeigners who sometimes drifted in at odd hours because hisestablishment was a noted one in Rome.
He was surprised when Hubert, speaking in excellent Italian, explainedthat he was expecting a lady, and that he wished to dine _tete-a-tete_.
"Egisto," he called to the elderly, under-sized waiter, "a private roomfor the signore. A lady will call at half-past eight."
"_Si, signore_," was the man's prompt reply, and at once he conductedthe Englishman upstairs to a small stuffy room on the first flooroverlooking the little piazza, where he began setting out the table fortwo.
Egisto in his black cotton coat and long white apron was surprised whenhis visitor, in reply to a question as to what he wished to eat, said:
"Please yourself. Something which is a speciality of the house. Whatis it?"
"Well, signore, our _zuppa alla Marinara_ is supposed to be the best inRome," he replied. "And of fish, we have red mullet cooked in theLivornese fashion--and _carciofi alla guidea_."
"Good," the visitor answered, for Hubert knew Italian cooking and knewwhat to order. "A dozen _tartufi della mare_, the _ztappa, triglie_ anda _risotto_ with _fegatini_ of chicken."
Egisto bowed. From that moment he held the stranger, though aforeigner, in great esteem, for he realised that he knew a good dinner.And every waiter from Liverpool to Luxor or from Tunis to Trondhjem bowsto the man who can discriminate on a menu. In what contempt, alas! areour own dear Cookites our Lunnites and our other various couponists heldby the man in the black tie and white apron. I have heard a touristorder a boiled haddock in Florence, another whom I overheard demanded"fish and chips" in the Grand Rue in Constantinople, and I recollectquite well a man from Oldham--evidently a cotton operative--loudly callin broad Lancashire for roast beef and Yorkshire pudding in the GrandHotel at Christiania.
Waldron descended the stairs and waited outside for some ten minutes orso until a taxi drove up and Her Highness, in the same shabby navy bluecostume, and worn furs, descended and greeted him eagerly.
When alone together in the small bare room--for only a table and tworush-covered chairs were set upon the uncarpeted floor, with a cheapsideboard against the wall--he assisted her off with her jacket, andwhen she was seated, Hubert said:
"Now we shall be able to resume our little confidential chat that was sounfortunately interrupted the other night. This place is quite quiet,and the waiter cannot understand a single word of English."
"Yes," she sighed apprehensively. "I--I really hardly know what to tellyou, Mr Waldron," she faltered, her big, expressive eyes fixed uponhis. "I only know that you are my very good friend, and that I havebeen foolish--ah! terribly foolish."
The waiter at that moment entered with the _zuppa_, and after it wasserved, discreetly withdrew.
"You hinted something about blackmail. I hope Your Highness will tellme everything. No doubt I can assist you," he said in a low, intensevoice when the door had closed.
"Not Highness, please--Lola," she protested, with a faint smile.
"I'm sorry," he exclaimed with an apologetic laugh. Then he added: "Isuppose we must eat some of this in order to keep up appearances--eh?"
"I suppose so," she agreed, and they both commenced to eat.
"Of course," Waldron went on earnestly, "I don't ask you in any spiritof mere inquisitiveness to tell me anything. I simply make the requestbecause you have admitted that you are worried, and I believe that itmay be in my power to assist you."
"Ah, Mr Waldron," she sighed, "I know I have been horribly indiscreet,and have greatly annoyed Their Majesties. Old Ghelardi has orders towatch me daily, but fortunately he is, after all, my friend. It is truethat an agent of secret police is told off to follow me wherever I go,for my own personal protection, and because the anarchists have latelyagain threatened the Royal House. But our crafty old friend, whom youknow as Jules Gigleux, is good enough to allow me much latitude, so thatI know when the secret agent will be off duty, and can then escape hisunwelcome attentions."
"With Ghelardi's connivance?" Hubert suggested with a laugh. "Then heis not exactly your enemy?"
She nodded in the affirmative, a sweet and mischievous smile playingabout her full red lips.
"True," she went on bitterly, a hard, haunted look in her eyes, "I am aPrincess of Savoia, yet after all, am I not a girl like all the othersabout me? At home, at my mother's castle at Mantova, I was alwaysallowed my freedom to ride, to motor, to do whatever I liked. Butsince, alas! I've been compelled to live at the Palace my life has beenso horribly circumscribed. I'm tired to death of the narrowness, thepomp, the tiresome etiquette, and the eternal best behaviour one has toput on. It's all horrible. Only in the evenings when, with Ghelardi'sconnivance, can I go out for an hour or so, do I breathe and enjoy thefreedom to which ever since a child I have been accustomed. In Society,people declare that I outrage all the conventionalities, and they holdup their hands at exaggerated stories of my motor trips, or because I goincognita to a theatre or make visits to my friends. But they do notknow, Mr Waldron, all that I have suffered. They cannot realise thatthe heart of a princess of the blood-royal is just the same as that of agirl of the people; that every woman loves to live, to enjoy herself,and to have her own freedom even though she may live in the eternallimelight and glitter of a brilliant Court like ours."
"But permit me to say that if half what I hear be true you are--well,shall we say just slightly injudicious in the way you go aboutincognita," he remarked.
"Ah! Yes, I know," she replied impatiently. "But I really can't helpit. Oh, how heartily I wish that I had never been a princess! The verytitle grates upon my nerves."
"Why?" he asked.
"
Because of the utter emptiness of it all--because," and her voicechanged--"because of the tragedy of it all."
"Tragedy! What do you mean?" he echoed quickly, staring at her.
The waiter again entered interrupting, yet Waldron saw from the changein her countenance that there was something hidden in her heart whichshe desired to confide to him, but for some reason she dare not speakthe truth.
As the man busied himself with the plates, recollections of that youngFrenchman, Henri Pujalet, arose before the Englishman. He rememberedthe passionate meeting beneath the palms, and her strict injunctions toexert every precaution so that Gigleux should suspect nothing.
Where was Pujalet? he wondered. Had their affection now cooled, and thesecret lover, in ignorance of