d.

"You call, signorina?"

"Be sure and be here by half past six on Friday morning; we must start
early."

"Sank you, signorina. Good-night."

"Good-night, Tony."

CHAPTER VIII

The Hotel du Lac may be approached in two ways. The ordinary, obvious
way, which incoming tourists of necessity choose, is by the highroad and
the gate. But the romantic way is by water. One sees only the garden then
and the garden is the distinguished feature of the place; it was planned
long before the hotel was built to adorn a marquis's pleasure house.
There are grottos, arbors, fountains, a winding stream; and, stretching
the length of the water front, a deep cool grove of interlaced plane
trees. At the end of the grove, half a dozen broad stone steps dip down
to a tiny harbor which is carpeted on the surface with lily pads. The
steps are worn by the lapping waves of fifty years, and are grown over
with slippery, slimy water weeds.

The world was just stirring from its afternoon siesta, when the
_Farfalla_ dropped her yellow sails and floated into the shady little
harbor. Giuseppe prodded and pushed along the fern-grown banks until the
keel jolted against the water steps. He sprang ashore and steadied the
boat while Constance alighted. She slipped on the mossy step--almost went
under--and righted herself with a laugh that rang gaily through the
grove.

She came up the steps still smiling, shook out her fluffy pink skirts,
straightened her rose-trimmed hat, and glanced reconnoiteringly about the
grove. One might reasonably expect, attacking the hotel as it were from
the flank, to capture unawares any stray guest. But aside from a
chaffinch or so and a brown-and-white spotted calf tied to a tree, the
grove was empty--blatantly empty. There was a shade of disappointment in
Constance's glance. One naturally does not like to waste one's best
embroidered gown on a spotted calf.

Then her eye suddenly brightened as it lighted on a vivid splash of
yellow under a tree. She crossed over and picked it up--a paper covered
French novel; the title was _Bijou_, the author was Gyp. She turned to
the first page. Any reasonably careful person might be expected to write
his name in the front of a book--particularly a French book--before
abandoning it to the mercies of a foreign hotel. But the several fly
leaves were immaculately innocent of all sign of ownership.

So intent was she upon this examination, that she did not hear footsteps