Luigi went off the other way, and Bero, with a flushed face, followed
Mae at a distance, and kept an eye on the stranger, flattering himself
that he was quite unnoticed by those sharp, keen eyes. He was mistaken,
Norman Mann had seen the officers before they saw him, had watched their
footsteps, and had a pretty clear idea of the whole affair.

Mae walked on happily, chatting with Eric, and with that vague,
delightful feeling of something exciting in the air. She knew there was
an officer behind her, because she had heard the clicking spurs, but she
only guessed that he might be one of the two who had passed--the
taller, perhaps,--which, of course, he was. She had, moreover, in some
mysterious way, caught sight of a figure resembling Norman Mann, trying,
she thought, to avoid her. Her spirits rose with the half-mystery, and
she grew brighter and prettier and more magnetic to the two followers as
she tossed her shoulders slightly and now and then half-turned her sunny
head.

As for Eric, he was totally unconscious of any secrets. He fancied
himself and his pretty, nice, little sister all alone by their very
selves, and he went so far as to expatiate on the vastness of the world,
and how in this crowd there was no other life that bordered or touched
on theirs.

To which Mae replied: "You don't know; you may fall in love with one of
these very Italian girls, or my future husband may be walking behind
me now." When she had said this, she flushed scarlet and was very much
ashamed of herself in her heart.

"We must go home now," Eric replied, quite disdaining such sybilistic
remarks. So they left the hill and went down the Steps in the rich