“But he knows Mr. Norris very well. I believe they are great friends.”
“You may believe it, but I don't,” I answered, rather gravely.
I had to decide what to do, and quickly. I had not forgotten my promise
to let Muggs alone, and it was of course the safer thing to do--just to
let him alone. But he had gone too far in expecting me to furnish him a
character.
Mrs. Mullet began to change color, and that led me to ask:
“Is Wilton a friend of yours?”
“We are engaged,” said she.
“Good heavens!” I exclaimed.
I had heard that Mrs. Mullet had money, and she was good game for the
neat Mr. Wilton. Now I could see his reason for letting us alone in
Italy, where he was four thousand miles from danger. I saw, too, that I
must take a course which would inevitably expose us to more trouble, for
I could not permit this simple woman to be wronged.
“Don't give him the source of your information,” I said. “I want to speak
kindly, and so I shall only say that he's a fugitive from justice. The
name Wilton is assumed.”
Mrs. Mullet fell into a chair and seemed to find it hard work to
breathe. Betsey put her smelling-salts under the lady's nose. She
quickly regained her self-possession and rose and said, in a trembling
voice:
“Thank you! I am going home.”
She left, and again we paid our compliments to the artist, who politely
left his work to speak with us. He asked me for information regarding
certain Americans who owed him for busts. An actress had had herself
put, life-size and nude, into white marble, and after making her first
payment was maintaining a discreet silence in some part of the world
unknown to the artist.
“How coy!” Betsey exclaimed as she looked at the marble figure.
A Brooklyn woman and her two daughters had sat for busts and then had
weakened on the general proposition and abandoned the country when they
were half finished. I made haste to depart for fear that he might wish
to engage me as collector for his bust factory.
Just beyond the door we met a young man who had come over on the boat
with us, and stopped for a word with him. I was telling him that I was
going to see the Pantheon that afternoon, when Muggs greeted me.
“It's a wonderful ruin,” he remarked with a smile.
I made no answer, and he entered the studio, probably to meet Mrs.
Mullet. He would get his dismissal soon. Then what?