“Thank God you’re still here, or I couldn’t have come. But what a lodging for the Princess!” the visitor exclaimed. “She might at least live in a manner befitting.” “Eh, the last time you were in London you thought it too expensive!” she cried. He cast about him. “Whatever she does is wrong. Is it because it’s so bad that you must go?” he went on. “It’s foolish—foolish—foolish,” said his friend, slowly and impressively. “Foolish, _che, che_! He was in the house nearly an hour, this one.” “In the house? In what house?” “Here where you sit. I saw him go in, and when he came out it was after a long time, and she with him.” “And where were you meanwhile?” Again the Prince faltered. “I was on the other side of the street. When they came out I followed them. It was more than an hour ago.” “Was it for that you came to London?” “Ah what I came for——! To put myself in hell!” “You had better go back to Rome,” said Madame Grandoni. “Of course I’ll go back, but only if you’ll tell me who this one is! How can you be ignorant, dear friend, when he comes freely in and out of the place?—where I have to watch at the door for a moment I can snatch. He wasn’t the same as the other.” “As the other?” “Doubtless there are fifty! I mean the little one I met in the house that Sunday afternoon.” “I sit in my room almost always now,” said the old woman. “I only come down to eat.” “Dear lady, it would be better if you would sit here,” the Prince returned. “Better for whom?” “I mean that if you didn’t withdraw yourself you could at least answer my questions.” “Ah but I haven’t the slightest desire to answer them,” Madame Grandoni replied. “You must remember that I’m not here as your spy.” “No,” said the Prince in a tone of extreme and simple melancholy. “If you had given me more information I shouldn’t have been obliged to come here myself. I arrived in London only this morning, and this evening I spent two hours walking up and down opposite there, like a groom waiting for his master to come back from a ride. I wanted a personal impression. It was so I saw him come in. He’s not a gentleman—not even one of the strange ones of this country.” “I think he’s Scotch or Welsh,” Madame Grandoni explained. “Ah then you _have_ seen him?” “No, but I’ve heard him. He speaks straight out (the floors of this house are not built as we build in Italy) and his voice is the same I’ve noticed in the people of the wild parts, where they ‘shoot.’ Besides, she has told me—some few things. He’s a chemist’s assistant.” “A chemist’s assistant? _Santo Dio!_ And the other one, a year ago—more than a year ago—was a bookbinder.” “Oh the bookbinder——!” the old woman wailed. “And does she associate with no people of good? Has she no other society?” “For me to tell you more, Prince, you must wait till I’m free,” she pleaded. “How do you mean, free?” “I must choose. I must either go away—and then I can tell you what I’ve seen—or if I stay here I must hold my tongue.”