“Prince Caravacioli has been speaking of you,” said Poor Jr., very quietly.

“Ah?” said I.

“I listened to what he said; then I told him that you were my friend, and that I considered it fair that you should hear what he had to say.  I will repeat what he said, Ansolini.  If I mistake anything, he can interrupt me.”

Antonio laughed, and in such a way, so sincerely, so gaily, that I was frightened.

“Very good!” he cried.  “I am content.  Repeat all.”

“He began,” Poor Jr. went on, quietly, though his hand gripped my shoulder to almost painfulness,—­“he began by saying to these ladies, in my presence, that we should be careful not to pick up chance strangers to dine, in Italy, and—­and he went on to give me a repetition of his friendly warning about Paris.  He hinted things for a while, until I asked him to say what he knew of you.  Then he said he knew all about you; that you were an outcast, a left-handed member of his own family, an adventurer—­”

“It is finished, my friend,” I said, interrupting him, and gazed with all my soul upon the beautiful lady.  Her face was as white as Antonio’s or that of my friend, or as my own must have been.  She strained her eyes at me fixedly; I saw the tears standing still in them, and I knew the moment had come.

“This Caravacioli is my half-brother,” I said.

Antonio laughed again.  “Of what kind!”

Oh, he went on so easily to his betrayal, not knowing the United-Statesians and their sentiment, as I did.

“We had the same mother,” I continued, as quietly as I could.  “Twenty years after this young—­this somewhat young—­Prince was born she divorced his father, Caravacioli, and married a poor poet, whose bust you can see on the Pincian in Rome, though he died in the cheapest hotel in Sienna when my true brother and I were children.  This young Prince would have nothing to do with my mother after her second marriage and—­”

“Marriage!” Antonio laughed pleasantly again.  He was admirable.  “This is an old tale which the hastiness of our American friend has forced us to rehearse.  The marriage was never recognized by the Vatican, and there was not twenty years—­”

“Antonio, it is the age which troubles you, after all!” I said, and laughed heartily, loudly, and a long time, in the most good-natured way, not to be undone as an actor.

“Twenty years,” I repeated.  “But what of it?  Some of the best men in the world use dyes and false—­”

At this his temper went away from him suddenly and completely.  I had struck the right point indeed!

“You cammorrista!” he cried, and became only himself, his hands gesturing and flying, all his pleasant manner gone.  “Why should we listen one second more to such a fisherman!  The very seiners of the bay who sell dried sea-horses to the tourists are better gentlemen than you.  You can shrug your shoulders!  I saw you in Paris, though you thought I did not!  Oh, I saw you well!  Ah!  At the Cafe de la Paiz!”