I slept at Como, and on the following morning I went on to Milan. There was no trace of the box to be found in that city. I went round to every hotel and travelling office, but could hear nothing of it. Parties had gone to Venice, and Florence, and Bologna, and any of them might have taken the box. No one, however, remembered it; and I returned back to Como, and thence to Bellaggio, reaching the latter place at nine in the evening, disappointed, weary, and cross.
“Has Monsieur found the accursed trunk?” said the Bellaggio Boots, meeting me on the quay.
“In the name of the ⸻, no. Has it not turned up here?”
“Monsieur,” said the Boots, “we shall all be mad soon. The poor master, he is mad already.” And then I went up to the house.
“My jewels!” shouted Mrs. Greene, rushing to me with her arms stretched out as soon as she heard my step in the corridor. I am sure that she would have embraced me had I found the box. I had not, however, earned any such reward. “I can hear nothing of the box either at Como or Milan,” I said.
“Then what on earth am I to do for my money?” said Mr. Greene.
I had had neither dinner nor supper, but the elder Greenes did not care for that. Mr. Greene sat silent in despair, and Mrs. Greene stormed about the room in her anger. “I am afraid you are very tired,” said Sophonisba.
“I am tired, and hungry, and thirsty,” said I. I was beginning to get angry, and to think myself ill used. And that idea as to a family of swindlers became strong again. Greene had borrowed ten napoleons from me before I started for Como, and I had spent above four in my fruitless journey to that place and Milan. I was beginning to fear that my whole purpose as to Venice and the Tyrol would be destroyed; and I had promised to meet friends at Innsbruck, who—who were very much preferable to the Greenes. As events turned out, I did meet them. Had I failed in this, the present Mrs. Robinson would not have been sitting opposite to me.
I went to my room and dressed myself, and then Sophonisba presided over the tea-table for me. “What are we to do?” she asked me in a confidential whisper.
“Wait for money from England.”
“But they will think we are all sharpers,” she said; “and upon my word I do not wonder at it from the way in which that woman goes on.” She then leaned forward, resting her elbow on the table and her face on her hand, and told me a long history of all their family discomforts. Her papa was a very good sort of man, only he had been made a fool of by that intriguing woman, who had been left without a sixpence with which to bless herself. And now they had nothing but quarrels and misery. Papa did not always got the worst of it;—papa could rouse himself sometimes; only now he was beaten down and cowed by the loss of his money. This whispering confidence was very nice in its way, seeing that Sophonisba was a pretty girl; but the whole matter seemed to be full of suspicion.
“If they did not want to take you in in one way, they did in another,” said the present Mrs. Robinson, when I told the story to her at Innsbruck. I beg that it may be understood that at the time of my meeting the Greenes I was not engaged to the present Mrs. Robinson, and was open to make any matrimonial engagement that might have been pleasing to me.
On the next morning, after breakfast, we held a council of war. I had been informed that Mr. Greene had made a fortune, and was justified in presuming him to be a rich man. It seemed to me, therefore, that his course was easy. Let him wait at Bellaggio for more money, and when he returned home, let him buy Mrs. Greene more jewels. A poor man always presumes that a rich man is indifferent about his money. But in truth a rich man never is indifferent about his money, and poor Greene looked very blank at my proposition.
“Do you mean to say that it’s gone forever?” he asked.
“I’ll not leave the country without knowing more about it,” said Mrs. Greene.
“It certainly is very odd,” said Sophonisba. Even Sophonisba seemed to think that I was too offhand.
“It will be a month before I can get money, and my bill here will be something tremendous,” said Greene.
“I wouldn’t pay them a farthing till I got my box,” said Mrs. Greene.
“That’s nonsense,” said Sophonisba. And so it was.
“Hold your tongue, Miss!” said the stepmother.
“Indeed, I shall not hold my tongue,” said the stepdaughter.
Poor Greene! He had lost more than his box within the last twelve months; for, as I had learned in that whispered conversation over the tea-table with Sophonisba, this was in reality her papa’s marriage trip.
Another day was now gone, and we all went to bed. Had I not been very foolish I should have had myself called at five in the morning, and have gone away by the early boat, leaving my ten napoleons behind me. But, unfortunately, Sophonisba had exacted a promise from me that I would not do this, and thus all chance of spending a day or two in Venice was lost to me. Moreover, I was thoroughly fatigued, and almost glad of any excuse which would allow me to lie in bed on the following morning. I did lie in bed till nine o’clock, and then found the Greenes at breakfast.
“Let
