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I went to see De Pretis, whom I found at home over his dinner. We put our heads together and debated how we might discover the Paris address of the Graf von Lira. In a great city like that it was no wonder Nino could not find them; but De Pretis hoped that some of his pupils might be in correspondence with the contessina, and would be willing to give the requisite directions for reaching her.
Ah" her wild smile broke out "I know what I'll do! I'll drink panna cream they call it here. Every night at tea they bring in what would cost a lira in Florence. I'll drink a whole cup of it! I'll eat pounds of butter and lots, lots of pudding that's what makes English people fat. I'll be fat too. You'll see!" And she threw a threatening nod at the scarecrow reflected in the tortoise-shell mirror.
To tell the truth, he was not so ugly as he had been; for the months with the contessina had refined him singularly, and perhaps he had caught a certain grace of manner from the baroness. He had grown more silent too, and seemed always preoccupied, as well he might be: but he had concealed his affair with the Lira family from me until that day, and I supposed him anxious about his appearance.
The old count breathed, shook himself and passed his handkerchief over his face before he spoke. The baroness stood as though she were petrified. "Thunder weather, you are a devilish young man!" said Von Lira, still panting. Then he suddenly recovered his dignity. "You have caused me to assault this young man by what you told me," he said, struggling to his feet.
He had ascertained from De Pretis that the count was not so angry as he had expected, and that Hedwig was quite satisfied with the explanations of the maestro. The day after the foregoing conversation he wrote a note to her, wherein he said that if the Contessina de Lira would deign to be awake at midnight that evening she would have a serenade from a voice she was said to admire.
The man paused in front of me, and when I had rounded the corner of the winding steps I saw that a brighter light than ours shone from a small doorway opening directly upon the stair. In another moment I was in the presence of Hedwig von Lira. The man retired and left us.
As a result they bundled the irate American into the carriage again and drove him poste haste back to the museum, where they deposited him upon the steps. Then in a flash the guarde and the cabman disappeared from sight and were seen no more. The victor smiled proudly as his nieces rushed toward him. "Did you have to pay another lira, Uncle?" asked Patsy, anxiously.
Neither could Anna Andreevna, nor the two girls who stood clasping each other in the corner, refrain from shedding tears, the girls for their youth and the sparkling joys of their maidenhood of which they had been deprived. "I would shoot them all if I could!" Katerina declared. Then Sergius' children, Kira and Lira, came in and Lina told them they might take some albumen. Kira put butter on his.
He offered to release Uncle John if he would give the cabman a good lira in exchange for the bad one. The official fee would be five lira or say three lira or even two. Uncle John flatly refused to pay anything to anybody. Only war could settle this international complication bloody and bitter war. The consul must cable at once for war-ships and troops. He would insist upon it.
At S. Lorenzo the cloisters are free. At the Carmine and the Annunziata the cloisters are free. At S. Croce the charge is a lira and at S. Maria Novella half a lira. To make a charge for the cloisters alone seems to me utterly wicked. Let the Pazzi Chapel at S. Croce and the Spanish Chapel here have fees, if you like; but the cloisters should be open to all.
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