Page:The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg (1928).djvu/138

 uncertain voice and the dark pair of lovers on the quai. The voice was like silver.

"Mais comment est-il donc possible que l'enfant que j'étais jadis puisse un jour connaître la vieillesse? Etre une Vieille! La Vieille Maréchale! Voyez, c'est elle, la vieille Princesse."

A bell rang somewhere in the apartment. She listened. Surely it was the telegram, perhaps explaining why he was late. A door opened. There was the sound of Ottilia's voice talking to someone with a man's voice, and then a laugh and then the door closing again. Ottilia would be coming now in a moment with the telegram. She stepped inside from the loggia, but Ottilia didn't come. What was keeping her? When a telegram came she ought to bring it in. All Italians were the same—hopeless.

Suddenly she rang with a too great violence, thinking at once, "I have lost all control of myself. I mustn't do that." There was another thought in the back of her mind which she kept pushing from her so that she might not even recognize it for what it was.

Ottilia was standing before her.

"The bell rang, Ottilia. Was it something for me?"

"No, Eccellenza. It was my cousin coming to pay me a visit."

Eccellenza! Eccellenza! Where had Ottilia learned that absurd method of address? If I watch for him he will never come. I must not be cross with Ottilia. Being rude to servants is a worse crime in the eyes of God than adultery. Most