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, Hélène.

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