A newspaper had made a good story of the matter, out of next to nothing, and it had been a subject of conversation during two or three days.

The lady who told it to the Princess Chiaromonte had been one of her most assiduous and intimate enemies for years, and, in order to make her uncomfortable, advanced the theory that the officer in question was no other than Giovanni Severi himself.
The Princess was not so easily disturbed, however, and smiled in her designing friend's face.

The poor man was dead and buried, she said, and every one knew it.

The report rested on nothing more substantial than a letter said to have been written by an English traveller and lion-hunter to one of the secretaries at the British Embassy in Washington, who was said, again, to have mentioned the fact to an Italian colleague, who had repeated it in writing to his sister, who lived somewhere in Piedmont and had spoken of it to some one else; and so on, till the story had reached the ears of a newspaper paragraph-writer who was hard up for a 'stick' of 'copy.' All this the Princess knew, or invented, and she ran off her explanation with a fluency that disconcerted her assailant.
The immediate result was that she bethought her of Ugo Severi, whom she had passed lately in her motor as he was riding leisurely along the road beyond Monteverde.

She had noticed him because her chauffeur had slackened speed a little, and she had nodded to him, though it was not likely that he should recognise her face through her veil.