sting them first. The lady refused to take them, and he tried to
put them into her mouth, while she repulsed him in a rage. He saw that no
one seemed inclined to take her part, and determined to continue the
assault, and taking her hand he kissed it again and again. She tried to
draw it away, and as she rose he put his arm round her waist and made her
sit down on his knee; but at this point the husband took her arm and led
her out of the room. The attacking party looked rather taken aback for a
moment as he followed her with his eyes, but sat down again and began to
eat and laugh afresh, while everybody else kept a profound silence. He
then turned to the footman behind his chair and asked him if his sword
was upstairs. The footman said no, and then the fatuous young man turned
to an abbe who sat near me, and enquired who had taken away his mistress:

"It was her husband," said the abbe.

"Her husband! Oh, that's another thing; husbands don't fight--a man of
honour always apologises to them."

With that he got up, went upstairs, and came down again directly,
saying,--

"The husband's a fool. He shut the door in my face, and told me to
satisfy my desires somewhere else. It isn't worth the trouble of
stopping, but I wish I had made an end of it."

He then called for champagne, offered it vainly to everybody, bade the
company a polite farewell and went upon his way.

As M. Grimaldi escorted me to my room he asked me what I had thought of
the scene we had just witnessed. I told him I would not have stirred a
finger, even if he had turned up her clothes.

"No more would I," said he, "but if she had accepted my hundred louis it
would have been different. I am curious to know the further history of
this siren, and I rely upon you to tell me all about it as you go through
Genoa."

He went away at day-break next morning.

When I got up I received a note from the false Astrodi, asking me if I
expected her and her great chum to supper. I had scarcely replied in the
affirmative, when the sham Duke of Courland I had left at Grenoble
appeared on the scene. He confessed in a humble voice that he was the son
of clock-maker at Narva, that his buckles were valueless, and that he had
come to beg an alms of me. I gave him four Louis, and he asked me to keep
his secret. I replied that if anyone asked me about him that I should say
what was absolutely true, that I knew him nothing about him. "Thank you;
I am now going to Marseilles.