In Venice," said she, her voice gentle, "you accepted the chance
readily enough. What has changed you?"

O'Mally flushed. What she said was true. "I was a fool in Venice,"
frankly.

"And you, Mr. Smith?" continued La Signorina, as with a lash.

But it was ineffectual. "I was a fool, too," admitted Smith. "In Venice
it sounded like a good joke, but it looks different now." He sat down
beside O'Mally.

"So much for gallantry! And you, Kitty?"

"I made a promise, and I'll keep it. But I think you are cruel and
wicked."

"No nonsense, Kitty," interposed Merrihew. "I've some rights now. You
will have this villa to-night."

"I refuse," replied Kitty simply.

Hillard slipped into the pause.

"Did you issue those invitations yourself?" he asked this strange,
incomprehensible woman.

"Do you believe that?" La Signorina demanded, with narrowing eyes.

"I don't know what to believe. But I repeat the question."

"On my word of honor, I know no more about this mystery than you do."
And there was truth in her voice and eyes.

"But are you not over-sure of your princess? Being a woman, may she not
have changed her plans?"

"Not without consulting me. I am not only sure," she added with a
positiveness which brooked no further question, "but to-morrow I shall
prove to you that her Highness has not changed her plans. I shall send
her a telegram at once, and you shall see the reply. But you, Mr.
Hillard, will you, too, desert me?"

"Oh, as for that, I am mad likewise," he said, with a smile on his lips
but none in his eyes. "I'll see the farce to the end, even if that end
is jail."

"If!" cried O'Mally. "You speak as though you had some doubt regarding
that possibility!"

"So I have." Hillard went to the table, selected a rose, and drew it
through the lapel of his coat.

"I say, Jack!" Merrihew interposed, greatly perturbed.

"And you will stay also, Dan."

"Are you really in earnest?" dubiously. Why hadn't this impossible woman
sung under somebody else's window?

"Earnest as I possibly can be. Listen a moment. La Signorina is not a
person recklessly to endanger us. She has, apparently, put her head into
the lion's mouth. But perhaps this lion is particularly well trained. I
am sure that she knows many things of which we are all ignorant. Trust
her to carry out this imposture which now seems so wild. Besides, to
tell the truth, I do not wish it said that I was outdone by Miss
Killigrew in courage and the spiri