you going?"

"I have a rendezvous this morning. I am to be three miles from this at
one o'clock. I am to be at the tomb of Cecilia Metella, to meet the Lady
Augusta Bramleigh, with a large party, on horseback, and we are to go
somewhere and see something, and to dine, _ma foi_--I forget where."

"I think, all things considered," said Longworth, gravely, "I would
advise some reserve as to intimacy with that family."

"You distrust my discretion. You imagine that in my unguarded freedom
of talking I shall say many things which had been better unsaid; is n't
that so?"

"Perhaps I do; at all events, I know the situation is one that would be
intolerable to myself."

"Not to _me_ though, not to _me_. It is the very difficulty, the
tension, so to say, that makes it enticing. I have I cannot tell you
what enjoyment in a position where, by the slightest movement to this
side or that, you lose your balance and fall. I like--I delight in
the narrow path with the precipice at each hand, where a false step
is destruction. The wish to live is never so strong as when life is in
danger."

"You are a heart and soul gambler."

"Confess, however, I am _beau joueur_. I know how to lose." And
muttering something over the lateness of the hour, he snatched up his
hat and hurried away.

As Pracontal was hurrying to the place of meeting with all the speed of
his horse, a servant met him with a note from Lady Augusta. "She did not
feel well enough," she said, "for a ride; she had a headache, and begged
he would come and pay her a visit, and dine too, if he was not afraid of
a dinner _en tete a tete_."

Overjoyed with the familiar tone of this note, he hurried back to Rome,
and soon found himself in the little drawing' room which looked out upon
the Borghese garden, and where a servant told him her Ladyship would
soon appear.

"This is very kind of you and very nice," said she, entering and giving
him her hand in a languid sort of manner, "to come here and give up
the delights of the picnic, with its pretty women and champagne, and
_pates-aux-truffes_. No; you are to sit yonder. I don't know you long
enough to advance you to the privilege of that low chair next my sofa."

"I am your slave, even to martyrdom," said he, bowing, and sitting down
where she had bid him.

"You are aware, I hope," said she, in the same wearied tone, "that it
is very wrong of us to become acquainted. That, connected as I am with
the Bramleighs, I ought no