She had thought no more about him at the time, but she now telephoned to a friend at headquarters to find out where he was living, and she soon learned that he was in charge of the magazine.
After a little reflection, she wrote him a note, recalling their acquaintance and the fact that she had known his poor brother very well.

She had never seen a powder magazine, she said; would he show the one at Monteverde to her and two or three friends, next Wednesday?
Ugo answered politely that this was quite impossible without a special permission from the Commander-in-Chief or the War Office, and that he greatly regretted his inability to comply with her request.

As he was a punctilious man, though he lived almost like a hermit, he took the trouble to send his orderly into the city on the following afternoon with a couple of cards to be left at the Palazzo Chiaromonte for the Prince and Princess, in accordance with Roman social custom.
A few days later a smart 'limousine' drew up to the door of Ugo's little house and a footman rang the old-fashioned bell, which went on tinkling in the distance for a long time after the rusty chain had been pulled.

Ugo's Sicilian orderly opened the door at last in a leisurely way and appeared on the threshold in grey linen fatigue dress; on seeing the car and the Princess he straightened himself and saluted.
His master was riding, he said, and would not come home for an hour.
The Princess wrote a message on a card, asking if Ugo would come and see her any day after five o'clock, and she wrote down the number of her telephone.

She gave the card to the man, and by way of impressing its importance on him, added that she was a very old friend of the family and had known the Captain's mother as well as the brother who had been lost in Africa.