st.
At seven a carriage will call for you. The messenger will blindfold
you. He will then proceed to the club and take the dinner, and
bring you here. Be warned! If you so much as lift the corner of the
bandage, the romance will end then and there. It is necessary to
enforce these conditions, but it is not necessary to explain why. I
realize that I am doing something very foolish and unwise. But, as
you say, I am a woman who has seen much of the world. Thus I have
my worldly side. I shall use it as a buffer.

"Blindfolded!" Hillard scrubbed his chin. All these precautions! Who was
she? What was she? An ordinary young woman, full of mischief, or was she
what he hoped, a real mystery? He was well on the way to find out. Since
there was no escape, blindfolded he would go.

At half after six, on the night of the first of February, then, he began
to dress. It was some time since he had taken such particular care.

"The signore seems in high spirits to-night," observed Giovanni, as he
laid out the linen.

"Man, I'm happy and greatly excited. Do you recollect the lady who sang
under my window? I am going to meet her to-night. The mystery will be a
mystery no longer."

"Who is she?" asked Giovanni sharply. It was rarely he asked a question
with such directness.

But his master was too excited to note it. "On my word, I don't know who
she is, Giovanni. She has written such charming letters! She may be only
a singer; she may be a Russian princess in exile; she may be an
adventuress of the most formidable type; she may be an American girl.
One thing, she is not English. English women as I have found them lack
the essential spirit of adventure."

"Ah!" Giovanni stroked his lips doubtfully. "It is not like the signore
to plunge blindly into adventures like this."

"The very word, blindly. I go blindfolded, _amico_. What do you think of
that?"

"Blindfolded?" Giovanni was horrified. "It is a trap!" he cried. "They
will assassinate you! No, you shall not go! In Rome, at the carnivals,
it is an old game. They will rob you."

"You are dreaming. This is America; things are not done that way here.
And nothing now can turn me aside." Hillard was all the while finishing
his toilet.

"I suppose not. But blindfolded!"

"Take the number of the cab as I get in. If anything should happen, give
the number to the police."

Giovanni, with a sharp movement of the hands, expressed his resignati