This afternoon Checkers and I had a horseback ride and I can sympathize with you after your Campagna rides, for I don’t feel as spry as I might. Though, after all, you have Mona Lisa with you to while away the time, and I?--Well, Boris is coming to America soon, so you’d better be on your best behavior. It is midnight and I have hopped into bed and spilt the ink; it’s high time I stopped writing and went to sleep and to dream of--well, of one of you, anyway. * * * * * PRINCE BORIS TO POLLY _Rome, March._ _Mon ange_, I am in Rome again, but will soon be in America with you. American Secretary like me no more because I follow after you; he go the other way, if possible, and I look in sky as if observing interesting eclipse. It make me very angry--wish to pull his nose--my heart is inky as the devil’s pit. Your Aunt, she likes me, at least. The Carthorse she calls herself, but not of your family surely, for you are like wild Arab colt. I try without success to tempt you with sweets and with fresh dates of the desert, but you not let me put on bridle. After Paris, my heart have big hole. Now I run after you to America to try mend the hole. You can be princess if you wish, and live in a country that will some day soon be master of the world. * * * * * A. D. TO POLLY _Rome, March._ Your letters, dear, from the farm bring the fine country air with them. I can see the still cold moonlight on the pure white snow and hear the ringing of the sleigh bells, I can see the old house, the fire crackling up the chimney, and the cozy room with the old prints, the warmth and geniality. Thank you, dear, for the picture. But your mood changed, didn’t it, darling, when you got back from your ride? I am sure your Aunt dropped some little bit of gossip, possibly something the Prince or Peppi may have written, though I feared he had quite forgotten her. He’s too deeply in love with Mona Lisa now to act like a sensible person, and whatever he says is colored by his insane jealousy of every other man in Rome who even looks on his divinity. But I’m coming home, Polly. I’ll do anything to get away. I know you want to live in America and so do I. Last night was the ball at the Austrian Embassy to which came the King and Queen. In a word--and a slang word at that--it wasn’t a patch on our Embassy Ball. Their palace, for one thing, doesn’t compare with ours, and then, notwithstanding all the etiquette and fuss of the Austrians, all their punctiliousness, it didn’t go off so smoothly. The fact is, it wasn’t so well done, and out of this I privately found much gratification. The American function had been a great success, while the reception of last night was rather a commonplace affair.