t alone and full of grief till
the marquis came and asked me to give him supper, advising that Veronique
should be asked in to keep us company.

"That's a rare girl," said he, "you really don't know her, and you ought
to know her better."

Although I was rather surprised, I did not stop to consider what the
motives of the crafty Genoese might be, and I went and asked Veronique to
come in. She replied politely that she would do so, adding that she knew
how great an honour I did her.

I should have been the blindest of men if I had not seen that the clever
marquis had succeeded in his well-laid plans, and that he had duped me as
if I had been the merest freshman. Although I hoped with all my heart
that I should get Rosalie back again, I had good reasons for suspecting
that all the marquis's wit would be employed to seduce her, and I could
not help thinking that he would succeed.

Nevertheless, in the position I was in, I could only keep my fears to
myself and let him do his utmost.

He was nearly sixty, a thorough disciple of Epicurus, a heavy player,
rich, eloquent, a master of state-craft, highly popular at Genoa, and
well acquainted with the hearts of men, and still more so with the hearts
of women. He had spent a good deal of time at Venice to be more at
liberty, and to enjoy the pleasures of life at his ease. He had never
married, and when asked the reason would reply that he knew too well that
women would be either tyrants or slaves, and that he did not want to be a
tyrant to any woman, nor to be under any woman's orders. He found some
way of returning to his beloved Venice, in spite of the law forbidding
any noble who has filled the office of doge to leave his native soil.
Though he behaved to me in a very friendly manner he knew how to maintain
an air of superiority which imposed on me. Nothing else could have given
him the courage to ask me to dinner when Petri was to be present. I felt
that I had been tricked, and I thought myself in duty bound to make him
esteem me by my behaviour for the future. It was gratitude on his part
which made him smooth the way to my conquest of Veronique, who doubtless
struck him as a fit and proper person to console me for the loss of
Rosalie.

I did not take any part in the conversation at supper, but the marquis
drew out Veronique, and she shone. It was easy for me to see that she had
more wit and knowledge of the world than Rosalie, but in my then state of
mind this grieve