a
tortoise-shell cat that was curled asleep on the bench.

"His name?" Gustavo's face cleared. "I get ze raygeester; you read heem
yourself."

He darted into the bureau and returned with a black book.

"_Ecco_, signorina!" spreading it on the table before her.

His alacrity should have aroused her suspicions; but she was too intent
on the matter in hand. She turned the pages and paused at the week's
entries; Rudolph Ziegelmann und Frau, Berlin; and just beneath, in bold
black letters that stretched from margin to margin, Abraham Lincoln, U.
S. A.

Gustavo hovered above anxiously watching her face; he had been told that
this would make everything right, that Abraham Lincoln was an exceedingly
respectable name. Constance's expression did not change. She looked at
the writing for fully three minutes, then she opened her purse and looked
inside. She laid the money for the eggs in a pile on the table, and took
out an extra lira which she held in her hand.

"Gustavo," she asked, "do you think that you _could_ tell me the truth?"

"Signorina!" he said reproachfully.

"How did that name get there?"

"He write it heemself!"

[Illustration: "She turned the pages and paused at the week's entries."]

"Yes, I dare say he did--but it doesn't happen to be his name. Oh, I'm
not blind; I can see plainly enough that he has scratched out his own
name underneath."

Gustavo leaned forward and affected to examine the page. "It was a li'l'
blot, signorina; he scratch heem out."

"Gustavo!" Her tone was despairing. "Are you incapable of telling the
truth? That young man's name is no more Abraham Lincoln than Victor
Emmanuel II. When did he write that and why?"

Gustavo's eyes were on the lira; he broke down and told the truth.

"Yesterday night, signorina. He say, 'ze next time zat Signorina
Americana who is beautiful as ze angels come to zis hotel she look in ze
raygeester, an' I haf it feex ready'."

"Oh, he said that, did he?"

"_Si_, signorina."

"And his real name that comes on his letters?"

"Jayreem Ailyar, signorina.

"Say it again, Gustavo." She cocked her head.

He gathered himself together for a supreme effort. He rolled his r's; he
shouted until the courtyard reverberated.

"Meestair-r Jay-r-reem Ailyar-r!"

Constance shook her head.

"Sounds like Hungarian--at least the way you pronounce it. But anyway
it's of no consequence; I merely asked out of idle curiosity. And
Gustavo--" She still held the l