HAWCASTLE [sitting]. And Madame de Champigny?

[MARIANO serves coffee, etc.]

[As HAWCASTLE speaks the COMTESSE DE CHAMPIGNY enters from hotel. She is a pretty Frenchwoman of thirty-two. She wears a fashionable summer Parisian morning dress, light and gay in color, a short-sleeved little Empire jacket, and long gloves. She carries a parasol. Her elaborately dressed hair is surmounted by a jaunty Parisian toque.]

MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY [lifting her hand gayly as she enters, and striking a little att.i.tude before she descends the steps]. Me voici!

HAWCASTLE [half rising and bowing]. My esteemed relative is still asleep?

MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY [speaking gayly, with a very slight accent, as she crosses to a chair at the table]. I trust your beautiful son has found much better employment--as our hearts would wish him to.

HAWCASTLE. He has. He's off on a canter with the little American, thank G.o.d!

MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY [interjecting the word]. Bravo!

[She turns the hands of her gloves back and sips coffee, MARIANO serving.]

HAWCASTLE [continuing]. But I didn't mean Almeric. I meant my august sister-in-law.

[He reads the paper.]

MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY [smiling]. The amiable Lady Victoria Hermione Trevelyan Creech has dejeuner in her apartment. What you find to read?

HAWCASTLE. I'm such a duffer at Italian, but apparently the people along the coast are having a scare over an escaped convict--a Russian.

MARIANO [starting slightly, drops a spoon noisily upon a plate on the table]. Pardon, Milor'!

MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY [setting down her coffee abruptly]. A Russian?

HAWCASTLE [translating with difficulty]. "An escaped Russian bandit has been traced to Castellamare--"

[Pauses.]

MARIANO [awe-struck]. Castellamare--not twelve kilometres from here!

HAWCASTLE [continuing]. "--and a confidential agent"--[looking up]--secret-service man, I dare say--"has requested his arrest. But the brigand tore himself"--[repeating slowly]--"tore himself"--What the deuce does that mean?

MARIANO [bowing]. Pardon, Milor'--if I might--

HAWCASTLE. Quite right, Mariano!

[Handing him the paper.]

Translate for us.

MARIANO [reading rapidly, but with growing agitation which he tries to conceal]. "The brigan' tore himself from the hands of the carabiniere and without the doubts he conceal himself in some of those grotto near Sorrento and searchment is being execute'. The agent of the Russian emba.s.sy have inform' the bureau that this escaped one is a mos'

in-fay-mose robber and danger brigand."

MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY [quickly]. What name does the journal say he has?

MARIANO [hurriedly]. It has not to say. That is all. Will Milor' and Madame la Comtesse excuse me? And may I take the journal? There is one who should see it.

HAWCASTLE [indifferently]. Very well.

MARIANO. Thank you, Milor'!

[Bows hastily and hurries out up left.]

MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY [gravely, drawing back from the table.] I should like much to know his name.

HAWCASTLE [smiling, and eating composedly]. You may be sure it isn't Ivanoff.

MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY [not changing her att.i.tude]. How can one know it is not [pauses and speaks the name very gravely] Ivanoff?

HAWCASTLE [laughing]. He wouldn't be called an infamous brigand.

MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY [very gravely]. That, my friend, may be only Italian journalism.

HAWCASTLE. Pooh! This means a highwayman--[finishes his coffee coolly]--not--not an embezzler, Helene.

MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY [taking a deep breath and sinking back in her chair with a fixed gaze]. I am glad to believe it, but I care for no more to eat. I have some foolish feeling of unsafety. It is now two nights that I dream of him--of Ivanoff--bad dreams for us both, my friend.

HAWCASTLE [laughing]. What rot! It takes more than a dream to bring a man back from Siberia.

MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY. Then I pray there has been no more than dreams.

[Music of mandolins and guitars heard off to the right with song--"The Fisherman's Song."]

[Enter ETHEL gayly and quickly from the grove, her face radiant. She is a very pretty American girl of twenty. She wears a light-brown linen skirted coat, fitting closely, and a country riding-skirt of the same material and color, with boots, a shirt-waist, collar and tie, and three-cornered hat. She carries a riding-crop. She is followed by three musicians (two mandolins and a guitar), who laughingly continue the song. They are shabby fellows, two of them barefooted, wearing shabby, patched velveteen trousers and blue flannel shirts open at the throat, with big black hats, old and shapeless. One makes a low and sweeping bow before ETHEL; she takes money from her glove and gives it to him, the other two not discontinuing the song; the three immediately 'bout face and go out gleefully, capering and still singing.]

HAWCASTLE [who has risen]. The divine Miss Granger-Simpson!

ETHEL [with a p.r.o.nounced "English accent"]. The divinely happy Miss Granger-Simpson!

MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY [rising, running to her, and kissing her]. Oh, I hope you mean--

HAWCASTLE [with some excitement in his voice]. You mean you have made my son divinely happy?

[ETHEL, as he speaks, extricates herself laughingly from MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY.]

ETHEL. Is not every one happy in Sorrento--[with a wave of her riding-crop]--even your son?

[Exit laughingly and hurriedly into the hotel.]

[MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY goes to stool behind table and gets her parasol, as HAWCASTLE resumes his seat.]

MADAME DE CHAMPIGNY. Ah! that is good. Listen!