e town, nearly two hours ago. I had
forbidden the tired child to accompany me, and by this time he would
no doubt be refreshed with a bath and a change of clothing, as,
fortunately, not all his personal belongings had been contained in the
ill-fated bag. He would be impatiently waiting for me at the hotel
door, perhaps; and I quickened my steps, in haste to give him details
of my doings.

Entering the garden, I had to bound onto the grass, to escape being
run over by a pair of horses prancing round the curve, at my back. I
turned with a basilisk glare intended for the coachman, but instead
met the astonished gaze of the very last eyes I could possibly have
expected. My glare melted into a smile, but not one of my best, though
the eyes which called it forth were alluringly beautiful.

"Contessa!" I exclaimed. "Is this you, or your astral body?"

"Lord Lane!" the lovely lady-of-the-eyes responded. "But no, it is not
possible!"

Just as I was about to protest that it was not only possible, but
certain, I caught sight of the Boy, in the doorway. As, at the
Contessa's word, the carriage came to a sudden halt, she reaching out
to me two little grey suede hands, the slim figure at the door drew
back a step, as if involuntarily; but there was no getting round it,
my Italian beauty had made Boy a present of my name, whether he wanted
it or not.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XV

Enter the Contessa

"She was the smallest lady alive,
Made in a piece of nature's madness,
Too small, almost, for the life and gladness
That over-filled her."
--ROBERT BROWNING.

Here was a case of Mahomet, _en route_ to pay his respects to the
Mountain, being met halfway by the object of his pilgrimage; though to
liken the Contessa di Ravello to a mountain is perhaps to brutalise a
poetic license. She is a fairy of a woman, a pocket Venus. Gaeta is
her name, and her sponsors in baptism must have been endowed with
prophetic souls, for she is the very spirit of irresponsible,
childlike gaiety.

Not that she has a sense of humour. There is all the difference in the
world between a sense of humour and a sense of fun, and truth to tell,
the Contessa had no more humour than a frolicsome kitten. She had
always been in a frolic of some sort, when I had known her in Davos,
whither she had gone because she thought it would be "what you call a
lark"; and she was in a frolic now, judging by her me