“Hallo, Johnny!  Why not at the House?” said I to him.  “You’ll want every vote to-night.  Be off and help the ministry, and take Donna Antonia with you.  They’re eating up the Minister of Finance.”

“All right!  I’m going as soon as I’ve had another muffin,” said Johnny.  “But what’s the row about?”

“Well, they want their money,” I replied; “and Don Antonio won’t give it them.  Hence bad feeling.”

“Tell you what it is,” said Johnny; “he hasn’t got a—­”

Here Donna Antonia struck in, rather suddenly, I thought.

“Do stop the gentleman talking politics, Mme. Devarges.  They’ll spoil our tea-party.”

“Your word is law,” I said; “but I should like to know what Don Antonio hasn’t got.”

“Now do be quiet,” she rejoined; “isn’t it quite enough that he has got—­a charming daughter?”

“And a most valuable one,” I replied, with a bow, for I saw that for some reason or other Donna Antonia did not mean to let me pump Johnny Carr, and I wanted to pump him.

“Don’t say another word, Mr. Carr,” she said, with a laugh.  “You know you don’t know anything, do you?”

“Good Lord, no!” said Johnny.

Meanwhile Mme. Devarges was giving me a cup of tea.  As she handed it to me, she said in a low voice: 

“If I were his friend I should take care Johnny didn’t know anything, Mr. Martin.”

“If I were his friend I should take care he told me what he knew, Mme. Devarges,” I replied.

“Perhaps that’s what the colonel thinks,” she said.  “Johnny has just been telling us how very attentive he has become.  And the signorina too, I hear.”

“You don’t mean that?” I exclaimed.  “But, after all, pure kindness, no doubt!”

“You have received many attentions from those quarters,” she said.  “No doubt you are a good judge of the motives.”

“Don’t, now don’t be disagreeable,” said I.  “I came here for peace.”

“Poor young man! have you lost all your money?  Is it possible that you, like Don Antonio, haven’t got a—­”

“What is going to happen?” I asked, for Mme. Devarges often had information.

“I don’t know,” she said.  “But if I owned national bonds, I should sell.”

“Pardon me, madame; you would offer to sell.”

She laughed.

“Ah!  I see my advice comes too late.”

I did not see any need to enlighten her farther.  So I passed on to Donna Antonia, who had sat somewhat sulkily since her outburst.  I sat down by her and said: 

“Surely I haven’t offended you?”

“You know you wouldn’t care if you had,” she said, with a reproachful but not unkind glance.  “Now, if it were the signorina—­”

I never object to bowing down in the temple of Rimmon, so I said: 

“Hang the signorina!”

“If I thought you meant that,” said Donna Antonia, “I might be able to help you.”