“‘Where are all the dear, dead women?’” asked the Boy. “’What’s become of all the gold that used to hang, and brush their shoulders?’ Maybe part of the answer to Browning’s question lies in those tombs.”

“They were Princesses, like your sister,” said I.  “I’ve been fancying them with her eyes.”

“What do you know about her eyes?” he asked quickly.

“I imagine them like yours.”

“Let’s get out into the sunshine again,” said the Boy.  “I’m afraid it’s time to leave the Princesses, and go back to the Contessa.”

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXIV

The Revenge of the Mountain

“Contending with the fretful elements.” 
—­SHAKESPEARE.

It is the early bird which gathers the worm, if the worm has thoughtlessly got up early too; but it is also the bird which comes flying from afar off, whatever his engagements elsewhere may be; the bird which, having come, remains on the spot favoured by the worm, singing sweet songs to charm it into a mood ripe for the gathering.

Such a bird was Paolo, and such—­but perhaps it would be more gallant not to carry the simile further, since even poetry could scarcely license it.

It is enough to say, in proof of the proverb, that when the Boy and I arrived at the villa in time for dejeuner, to which I had been invited over night, we found Paolo with Gaeta, under the red umbrella, unencumbered by any irrelevant Barons or Baronesses.

Gaeta was looking pale and a little frightened.  Her dimples were in abeyance, as if waiting to learn whether something had happened to twinkle about, or something which would more likely extinguish them forever.  But the aeronaut might have invented an air-ship to take the place of ordinary Channel traffic, so great with pride was he.  He appeared to have grown several inches in height, and to have increased considerably in chest measurement, as he sprang from his chair to welcome us, as if we had been long-lost brothers.

“Congratulate me,” said he.  “The Contessa has just consented to be my wife.”

Gaeta clutched the arm of her rustic seat with a tiny hand upon which a new ring glittered, like a new star in the firmament.  Her warm dark eyes, eager, expectant, deliciously fearful, were on the Boy.  If the discarded favourite of yesterday had leaped to the throat of the accepted lover of to-day (her “Whirlwind"), she would have screamed a silvery little scream and implored him for her sake to accept the inevitable calmly; she would have given him a reproachful flash of the eyes, to say, “Why didn’t you take me, instead of letting him carry me away?  What could I do, when you left me alone, at his mercy—­I so frail, he so big and strong?” Her glance would then have telegraphed to Paolo, “You have won me and my love; you can afford to spare a defeated rival who is desperate”; and perhaps she might even have thrown me a crumb for auld flirtation’s sake.