Surrounded by plumes and swords and gold lace, I maintained my innocence and heard Jack Herriott, on his opportune arrival, pour forth in weird, but fluent, Italian an account of me that must have surrounded me in the eyes of all present with a golden halo, and that firmly established me in their minds as the probable next President of the United States.  Thanks to these exaggerations and to various confirmatory cablegrams—­Dunny had plainly set the wires humming on receiving my S.O.S.,—­I found myself a free man, at price of putting my signature to a statement of it all.  I shook the hand of the ever non-committal Captain Cecchi, and left the ship.  And an hour after good old Jack was gazing at me in wrath unconcealed as I informed him that I was in the mood for neither gadding, nor social intercourse, and had made up my mind to proceed immediately to duty at the Front.

“You’ve been seasick; that’s what ails you,” he said, diagnosing my condition.  “Oh, I don’t expect you to admit it—­no man ever did that.  But you wait and see how you feel when we’ve had a few meals at the Grand Hotel in Rome!”

This culinary bait leaving me cold, he lost his temper, expressed a hope that the Germans would blow my ambulance to smithereens, and assured me that the next time I brought the Huns’ papers across the ocean I might extricate myself without his assistance from what might ensue.  However, though he has a bark, Jack possesses no bite worth mentioning.  He even saw me off when I left by the north-bound train.

Leaning moodily forward, I looked again from the window and wished I might hurry the creaking, grinding revolution of the wheels.  We were climbing higher and higher among the mountains.  The chestnuts, growing scanter, were replaced by dark firs and pines.  Streams came winding down like icy crystal threads; the little rivers we crossed looked blue and glacial; pale-pink roses and mountain flowers showed themselves as we approached the peaks.  A polite official, entering, examined our papers; and with snow surrounding us and cold clear air blowing in at the window, we left Bardonnecchia, the last of the frontier towns.

I was speeding toward France; but where was the girl of the Re d’Italia?  To what dubious rendezvous, what haunt of spies, had she hurried, once ashore?  The thought of her stung my vanity almost beyond endurance.  She had pleaded with me that night, swayed against me trustingly, appealed to me as to a chivalrous gentleman and, having competently pulled the wool over my eyes, had laughed at me in her sleeve.

I had held myself a canny fellow, not an easy prey to adventurers; a fairly decent one, too, who didn’t lie to a king’s officer or help treasonable plots.  Yet had I not done just those things by my silence on the steamer?  And for what reason?  Upon my soul I didn’t know, unless because she had gray eyes.

“Hang it all!” I exclaimed, flinging my unlucky paper into a corner, and becoming aware too late that Van Blarcom was observing me with a grin.