Taking our coffee in the drawing-room Carolyn and myself came to the conclusion that there was more in the wisdom of Providence than some people care to admit. If Mr. Chasemore had decided to come on with us to Florence the likelihood was that we should have had no opportunity of making this very fortunate and delightful acquaintance; there would have been less to record in our diaries under the heading of that day. Carolyn’s impression was that the son of a titled lady was a viscount, but she could not be certain; she had on some far-distant occasion studied the matter thoroughly, but most of the information then acquired seemed to have been erased from her mind. Anyway the chance was too good to lose, and Carolyn Stokes said the great thing was to exhibit not too much eagerness, but to allow friendship to ripen, so to speak, in the course of the next twenty-four hours. Carolyn has a distinct streak of sentimentality in her character, and she spoke of the influence of blue Italian skies and the moon shining on the water, and Dante and Beatrice, and the new hat I had purchased in the Via Condotti at Rome. We went upstairs to put on some wraps. In the passage her ladyship’s head was out of her door, and she was calling in an imperative kind of way. “Norman, Norman! Where on earth has he got to again? Never here somehow when he’s wanted.” One of the hotel maids came along and she gave her a message. “The lad really,” she said, taking her head in, “is perfectly useless.” Carolyn Stokes was occupying a few minutes later a central position at the mirror in our room when she suddenly gave a shriek; I assumed it was only the presence of a moth in the room. As she did not shriek again I considered the hideous danger was past and done with, and I requested her to permit me to share the mirror for a moment. “Child,” she announced in a subdued sort of voice and still gazing into the glass, “I have seen it all in a flash. You are under the impression that he is some sort of a nobleman. He is nothing of the kind. He is merely a footman or a courier, paid a moderate amount per week to attend on this Lady Somebody. That’s what he is,” she said, striking the dressing table, “and I am more thankful than I can express that I have discovered it in time.” “The question can be easily decided,” I mentioned. “We have only to glance in the book kept at the desk below.” “I did that, but they have not yet registered.” “Then a question must be put to the people of the hotel.” “That I also did,” replied Carolyn Stokes, “and their acquaintance with the American language made them assume that I required a postcard with a view of the cathedral. They have no right,” she went on vehemently, “in these foreign hotels to allow a footman to dine with the other guests. I know it is done, but no one will persuade me that it is right or fair to respectable visitors. It ought to be stopped.”