he insist on written securities
and mortgages of my private property when he lends me money? How
different the world is from the romances, my Laura! But for De Pyrmont, I
might fancy my smile was really incapable of ransoming an empire; I mean
an emperor. Speak; the man is waiting to come; shall I summon him?'

Laura gave an acquiescent nod.

By this time Beppo had taken root to the floor. 'I am in the best place
after all,' he said, thinking of the duties of his service. He was
perfectly well acquainted with the features of the Signor Antonio. He
knew that Luigi was the Signor Antonio's spy upon Vittoria, and that no
personal harm was intended toward his mistress; but Beppo's heart was in
the revolt of which Vittoria was to give the signal; so, without a touch
of animosity, determined to thwart him, Beppo waited to hear the Signor
Antonio's scheme.

The Greek was introduced by Aennchen. She glanced at the signora's lap,
and seeing her still without her fan, her eye shot slyly up with her
shining temple, inspecting the narrow opening in the curtain furtively. A
short hush of preluding ceremonies passed.

Presently Beppo heard them speaking; he was aghast to find that he had no
comprehension of what they were uttering. 'Oh, accursed French dialect!'
he groaned; discovering the talk to be in that tongue. The Signor Antonio
warmed rapidly from the frigid politeness of his introductory manner. A
consummate acquaintance with French was required to understand him. He
held out the fingers of one hand in regimental order, and with the
others, which alternately screwed his moustache from its constitutional
droop over the corners of his mouth, he touched the uplifted digits one
by one, buzzing over them: flashing his white eyes, and shrugging in a
way sufficient to madden a surreptitious listener who was aware that a
wealth of meaning escaped him and mocked at him. At times the Signor
Antonio pitched a note compounded half of cursing, half of crying, it
seemed: both pathetic and objurgative, as if he whimpered anathemas and
had inexpressible bitter things in his mind. But there was a remedy! He
displayed the specific on a third finger. It was there. This being done
(number three on the fingers), matters might still be well. So much his
electric French and gesticulations plainly asserted. Beppo strained all
his attention for names, in despair at the riddle of the signs. Names
were pillars of light in the dark unintelligible wa