“Here,” said she seriously to the old man, “you can sell it again now.”

This made me laugh.  I gave the count ten sequins in addition, embraced Irene, and said I must be gone, but that I would see them again in three or four days.

Irene escorted me to the bottom of the stairs, and as she allowed me to assure myself that she still possessed the rose of virginity, I gave her another ten sequins, and told her that the first time she went alone to the ball with me I would give her a hundred sequins.  She said she would consult her father.

Feeling sure that the poor devil would hand over Irene to me, and having no apartment in which I could enjoy her in freedom, I stopped to read a bill in a pastrycook’s window.  It announced a room to let.  I went in, and the pastrycook told me that the house belonged to him, and his pretty wife, who was suckling a baby, begged me to come upstairs and see the room.  The street was a lonely one, and had a pleasing air of mystery about it.  I climbed to the third floor, but the rooms there were wretched garrets of no use to me.

“The first floor,” said the woman, “consists of a suite of four nice rooms, but we only let them together.”

“Let us go and see them.  Good! they will do.  What is the rent?”

“You must settle that with my husband.”

“And can’t I settle anything with you, my dear?”

So saying I gave her a kiss which she took very kindly, but she smelt of nursing, which I detested, so I did not go any farther despite her radiant beauty.

I made my bargain with the landlord, and paid a month’s rent in advance for which he gave me a receipt.  It was agreed that I should come and go as I pleased, and that he should provide me with food.  I gave him a name so common as to tell him nothing whatever about me, but he seemed to care very little about that.

As I had agreed with Barbaro to visit the fair marchionesses, I dressed carefully, and after a slight repast with the countess, who was pleasant but did not quite please me, I met my fellow-countryman and we called on the two cousins.

“I have come,” said I, “to beg your pardons for having revealed to you the secret of the snuff-box.”

They blushed, and scolded Barbaro, thinking that he had betrayed them.  On examining them I found them far superior to Irene, my present flame, but their manner, the respect they seemed to require, frightened me.  I was not at all disposed to dance attendance on them.  Irene, on the contrary, was an easy prey.  I had only to do her parents a service, and she was in my power; while the two cousins had their full share of aristocratic pride, which debases the nobility to the level of the vilest of the people, and only imposes upon fools, who after all are in the majority everywhere.  Further I was no longer at that brilliant age which fears nothing, and I was afraid that my appearance would hardly overcome them.  It is true that Barbaro had made me hope that presents would be of some use, but after what the Marquis Triulzi had said, I feared that Barbaro had only spoken on supposition.