The _carissima signora_ loves you.

You didn't know it.

But she loves you." I stared for a moment at the dwarf as if he had been a reasonable being.
Something seemed to click inside my head, like a clogged cog-wheel that had suddenly freed itself, and my mind went whirling away straight through the past few weeks.

I tried to smile, and I said: "You are quite mistaken." "Oh, no," he replied, wagging his Napoleonic head.

"Anastasius Papadopoulos is never mistaken.