The Lady Paramount | Page 2

the quay.
"A boat from the Fiorimondo," he gasped, in stupefaction.
"Yes," said Susanna, pleasantly. "The Fiorimondo takes me as far as
Venice. There I leave it for the train."
The Commendatore's faded old blue eyes flickered anxiously.
"I can't think I am dreaming," he remarked, with a kind of vague

plaintiveness; "and of course you are not serious. My dear, I don't
understand."
"Oh, I 'm as serious as mathematics," she assured him.
She gave her head a little pensive movement of affirmation, and lifted
her eyes to his, bright with an expression of trustful candour. This was
an expression she was somewhat apt to assume when her mood was a
teasing one; and it generally had the effect of breaking down the
Commendatore's gravity. "You are a witch," he would laugh, availing
himself without shame of the way-worn reproach, "a wicked,
irresistible little witch."
"The thing," she explained, "is as simple as good-day. I 'm starting on
my travels--to see the world--Paris, which I have only seen
once--London, which I have never seen--the seaports of Bohemia, the
mountains of Thule, which I have often seen from a distance, in the
mists on the horizon. The Fiorimondo takes me as far as Venice. That
is one of the advantages of owning a steam-yacht. Otherwise, I should
have to go by the Austrian-Lloyd packet; and that would n't be half so
comfortable."
Her eyes, still raised to the Commendatore's, melted in a smile;--a
smile seemingly all innocence, persuasiveness, tender appeal for
approbation, but (I 'm afraid) with an undergleam that was like a
mocking challenge.
He, perforce, smiled too, though with manifest reluctance; and at the
same time he frowned.
"My dear, if it were possible, I should be angry with you. This is
scarcely an appropriate hour for mystifications."
"That it is n't," agreed Susanna, heartily. And she put up her hand, to
cover a weary little yawn. "But there 's no mystification. There 's a
perfectly plain statement of fact. I 'm starting to-night for Venice."
He studied her intently for a moment, fixedly, pondering something.

Then, all at once, the lines of dismay cleared from his lean old
ivory-yellow face.
"Ha! In a ball-dress," he scoffed, and pointed a finger at Susanna's
snowy confection of tulle and satin and silver embroidery, all
a-shimmer in the artificial moonlight of the electric lamps, against the
background of southern garden,--the outlines and masses, dim and
mysterious in the night, of palms and cypresses, of slender
eucalyptus-trees, oleanders, magnolias, of orange-trees, where the
oranges hung, amid the dark foliage, like dull-burning lanterns. A
crescent of diamonds twinkled in the warm blackness of her hair. She
wore a collar of pearls round her throat, and a long rope of pearls that
descended to her waist, and was then looped up and caught at the
bosom by an opal clasp. A delicate perfume, like the perfume of violets,
came and went in the air near her. She held a great fluffy fan of white
feathers in one hand, and in the other carried loose her long white
gloves; and gems sparkled on her fingers. The waters under the
sea-wall beside her kept up a perpetual whispering, like a commentary
on the situation. The old man considered these things, and his
misgivings were entirely dissipated.
"Ha!" he scoffed, twisting his immense iron-grey moustaches with
complacency. "I can't guess what prank you may be up to, but you are
never starting for Venice in a ball-dress. You 're capable of a good deal,
my dear, but you 're not capable of that."
"Oh, I 'm capable of anything and everything," Susanna answered,
cheerfully ominous. "Besides," she plausibly admonished him, "you
might do me the justice of supposing that I have changes aboard the
Fiorimondo. My maid awaits me there with quite a dozen boxes.
So--you see. Oh, and by the bye," she interjected, "Serafino also is
coming with me. He'll act as courier--buy my tickets, register my
luggage; and then, when we reach our ultimate destination, resume his
white cap and apron. My ultimate destination, you must know," she
said, with a lightness which, I think, on the face of it was spurious, "is a
little village in England--a little village called Craford; and"--she
smiled convincingly--"I hear that the cuisine is not to be depended

upon in little English villages."
All the Commendatore's anxieties had revived. This time he frowned in
grim earnest.
"Créforrrd!" he ejaculated.
The word fell like an explosion; and there was the climax of horrified
astonishment in those reverberating r's.
"I think you are mad," he said. "Or, if you are not mad, you are the
slyest young miss in Christendom."
Susanna's eyes darkened, pathetic, wistful.
"Ah, don't be cross," she pleaded. "I 'm not mad, and I 'm not sly. But I
'm