Tony looked back and smiled. He swept off his hat with a deferential bow. "_Scusi_," he murmured, and jumped over the wall into the grounds of Villa Rosa. The lieutenant gasped. If anything could have been more insultingly inadequate to the situation than that one word _scusi_, it did not at the moment occur to him. Jeering, blasphemy, vituperation, he might have excused, but this! The shock jostled him back to a thinking state. Here was no ordinary donkey-driver. The hand that had rested for a moment on his arm was the hand of a gentleman. The man's face was vaguely, elusively familiar; if the lieutenant had not seen him before, he had at least seen his picture. The man had pretended he could not talk Italian, but--_scusi_--it came out very pat when it was needed. An idea suddenly assailed Lieutenant di Ferara. He scrambled up the bank and skirted the wall, almost on a run, until he reached the place where his horse was tied. Two minutes later he was off at a gallop, headed for the house of the prefect of police of Valedolmo. CHAPTER XVI Tony jumped over the wall. He might have landed in the midst of a family party; but in so much luck was with him. He found the _Farfalla_ bobbing at the foot of the water steps with Mr. Wilder and Miss Hazel already embarked. They were waiting for Constance, who had obligingly run back to the house to fetch the rainbow shawl (finished that afternoon) as Miss Hazel distrusted the Italian night breeze. Constance stepped out from the door as Tony emerged from the bushes. She regarded him in startled surprise; he was still in some slight disarray from his encounter with the lieutenant. "May I speak to you, Miss Wilder? I won't detain you but a moment." She nodded and kept on, her heart thumping absurdly. He had received the letter of course; and there would be consequences. She paused at the top of the water steps. "You go on," she called to the others, "and pick me up on your way back. Tony wants to see me about something, and I don't like to keep Mrs. Eustace and Nannie waiting." Giuseppe pushed off and Constance was left standing alone on the water steps. She turned as Tony approached; there was a touch of defiance in her manner. "Well?" He came to her side and leaned carelessly against the parapet, his eyes on the _Farfalla_ as she tossed and dipped in the wash of the _Regina Margarita_ which was just puffing out from the village landing. Constance watched him, slightly taken aback; she had expected him to be angry, sulky, reproachful--certainly not nonchalant. When he finally brought his eyes from the water, his expression was mildly melancholy. "Signorina, I have come to say good bye. It is very sad, but tomorrow, I too--" he waved his hand toward the steamer--"shall be a passenger." "You are going away from Valedolmo?" He nodded.