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Updated: June 21, 2025
He was shaking the cornucopia free of the last kernel of corn when he saw something which caused him to stifle an exclamation. "Dan," he said, "keep on feeding the doves. If I'm not back inside of ten minutes, return to the hotel and wait for me. No questions; I'll tell you everything later." Merrihew's eyes widened. What now?
"This is your first trip to Italy?" "Yes. You people are very courteous here." "Oh, we make that a part of our business." A hundred cabmen yelled and shouted; but at a sign from Merrihew's new acquaintance they subsided or turned their attention elsewhere. This sign of respect made a still deeper impression on Merrihew. "I'll bet a dollar he's an admiral!" he thought.
"A hundred to seventy-five, Dan." "For what?" "For the mere fun of the game, of course." "Make it cigars, just to add interest." "Cigars, then." But they both played a very indifferent game. At ten-thirty Merrihew's eyes began to haunt the clock, and Hillard grew merciful for various reasons. "What time does the performance end?" he asked.
Peter's and the Vatican." "Impossible! In the hour we have left we can see nothing, positively nothing. And even now we had better start for the station to get a compartment before the rush. St. Peter's and the Vatican! You talk like the Englishman who wanted to run over to San Francisco and back to Philadelphia in the morning." A grin now spread over Merrihew's face.
He was winning. He would have been just as reluctant, however, had he been losing. The amateur gambler never wants to stop. On the way to the Killigrew apartment, Merrihew's moods varied. At one moment he was on the heights, at the next in the depths. He simply could not live without Kitty. Perhaps if this trip abroad turned out badly she might change her mind.
Hillard only smiled, tipped the cradle and refilled Merrihew's glass with some excellent Romanee Conti. "When does Kitty sail?" he asked, after a while of silence. "A week from this Saturday, February second. What the deuce did you bring up that for? I've been trying to forget it." "Where do they land?" "Naples. They open in Rome the first week in March.
The man was an exceedingly handsome Italian, for all that a scar ran from his check to his chin. It was all over in a moment; and Hillard and Merrihew proceeded to the street. "Handsome duffer," was Merrihew's comment. "But you never can tell a man by his looks. Gaze on me, for instance. I'm a good example of handsome is as handsome does." He was growing merry. "Go home!"
We went through the Pitti Palace to-day. I couldn't drag you from Raphael's Madonna of the Chair. She is as beautiful as that." "Imagination is a wonderful thing," was Merrihew's solitary comment. "Mine has not been unduly worked in this instance," Hillard declared with emphasis. "Beauty in women has always been to me something in the abstract, but it is so no longer.
Merrihew grew dizzy trying to absorb the whole canvas at once. How the sturdy little campagna ponies ran up and down the narrow winding streets! Crack-crack! went the driver's lash. It possessed a language all its own. It called, it warned at the turning of the corners, it greeted friends, it hurled curses at rivals. Crack-crack! till Merrihew's ears ached.
"Pleasant evening," was Merrihew's comment. Hillard continued to whistle. "Good dinner, too." The whistle went on serenely, in spite of Merrihew's obvious attempts to choke it off. "You seemed to have a good deal to say to Mrs. Sandford. She knows the lady who was in the house?" Still the whistle. "Say, wake up!" cried Merrihew impatiently.
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