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The speculator leaned back in his chair in good-humored astonishment. The lady’s black eyes, without looking at Tournelli, glanced backward round the room, and slipped along our table, with half-defiant unconcern; and then she uttered a short hysterical laugh.

“Ah! ze lady–madame–ze signora–eh–she wantah me?” continued Tournelli, leaning on the table with compressed fingers, and glaring at her. “Perhaps SHE wantah Tournelli–eh?”

“Well, you might bring some with the soup,” blandly replied her escort, who seemed to enjoy the Italian’s excitement as a national eccentricity; “but hurry up and set the table, will you?”

Then followed, on the authority of the Editor, who understood Italian, a singular scene. Secure, apparently, in his belief that his language was generally uncomprehended, Tournelli brought a decanter, and, setting it on the table, said, “Traitress!” in an intense whisper. This was followed by the cruets, which he put down with the exclamation, “Perjured fiend!” Two glasses, placed on either side of her, carried the word “Apostate!” to her ear; and three knives and forks, rattling more than was necessary, and laid crosswise before her plate, were accompanied with “Tremble, wanton!” Then, as he pulled the tablecloth straight, and ostentatiously concealed a wine-stain with a clean napkin, scarcely whiter than his lips, he articulated under his breath: “Let him beware! he goes not hence alive! I will slice his craven heart–thus–and thou shalt see it.” He turned quickly to a side table and brought back a spoon. “And THIS is why I have not found you;” another spoon, “For THIS you have disappeared;” a purely perfunctory polishing of her fork, “For HIM, bah!” an equally unnecessary wiping of her glass, “Blood of God!”–more wiping–“It will end! Yes”–general wiping and a final flourish over the whole table with a napkin–“I go, but at the door I shall await you both.”

She had not spoken yet, nor even lifted her eyes. When she did so, however, she raised them level with his, showed all her white teeth–they were small and cruel-looking–and said smilingly in his own dialect:–

“Thief!”

Tournelli halted, rigid.

“You’re talking his lingo, eh?” said her escort good-humoredly.

“Yes.”

“Well–tell him to bustle around and be a little livelier with the dinner, won’t you? This is only skirmishing.”

“You hear,” she continued to Tournelli in a perfectly even voice; “or shall it be a policeman, and a charge of stealing?”

“Stealing!” gasped Tournelli. “YOU say stealing!”

“Yes–ten thousand dollars. You are well disguised here, my little fellow; it is a good business–yours. Keep it while you can.”

I think he would have sprung upon her there and then, but that the Quartermaster, who was nearest him, and had been intently watching his face, made a scarcely perceptible movement as if ready to anticipate him. He caught the officer’s eye; caught, I think, in ours the revelation that he had been understood, drew back with a sidelong, sinuous movement, and disappeared in the passage to the kitchen.

I believe we all breathed more freely, although the situation was still full enough of impending possibilities to prevent peaceful enjoyment of our dinner. As the Editor finished his hurried translation, it was suggested that we ought to warn the unsuspecting escort of Tournelli’s threats. But it was pointed out that this would be betraying the woman, and that Jo Hays (her companion) was fully able to take care of himself. “Besides,” said the Editor, aggrievedly, “you fellows only think of YOURSELVES, and you don’t understand the first principles of journalism. Do you suppose I’m going to do anything to spoil a half-column of leaded brevier copy–from an eye-witness, too? No; it’s a square enough fight as it stands. We must look out for the woman, and not let Tournelli get an unfair drop on Hays. That is, if the whole thing isn’t a bluff.”

But the Italian did not return. Whether he had incontinently fled, or was nursing his wrath in the kitchen, or already fulfilling his threat of waiting on the pavement outside the restaurant, we could not guess. Another waiter appeared with the dinners they had ordered. A momentary thrill of excitement passed over us at the possibility that Tournelli had poisoned their soup; but it presently lapsed, as we saw the couple partaking of it comfortably, and chatting with apparent unconcern. Was the scene we had just witnessed only a piece of Southern exaggeration? Was the woman a creature devoid of nerves or feeling of any kind; or was she simply a consummate actress? Yet she was clearly not acting, for in the intervals of conversation, and even while talking, her dark eyes wandered carelessly around the room, with the easy self-confidence of a pretty woman. We were beginning to talk of something else, when the Editor said suddenly, in a suppressed voice: