“Call on me here, if you have time, I have a little commission to give you.”

“I shall always have time to serve your excellency in.  Are you stopping here for long?”

“Three or four days.”

When I ’got back to my box Marcoline asked me who were the gentlemen to whom I had been speaking.  I answered coolly and indifferently, but watching her as I spoke, that they were the Venetian ambassadors on their way from London.  The flush of her cheek died away and was replaced by pallor; she raised her eyes to heaven, lowered them, and said not a word.  My heart was broken.  A few minutes afterwards she asked me which was M. Querini, and after I had pointed him out to her she watched him furtively for the rest of the evening.

The curtain fell, we left our box, and at the door of the theatre we found the ambassadors waiting for their carriage.  Mine was in the same line as theirs.  The ambassador Querini said,—­

“You have a very pretty young lady with you.”

Marcoline stepped forward, seized his hand, and kissed it before I could answer.

Querini, who was greatly astonished, thanked her and said,—­

“What have I done to deserve this honour?”

“Because,” said Marcoline, speaking in the Venetian dialect, “I have the honour of knowing his excellency M. Querini.”

“What are you doing with M. Casanova?”

“He is my uncle.”

My carriage came up.  I made a profound bow to the ambassadors, and called out to the coachman, “To the ’Hotel du Parc’.”  It was the best hotel in Lyons, and I was not sorry for the Venetians to hear where I was staying.

Marcoline was in despair, for she saw that the time for parting was near at hand.

“We have three or four days before us,” said I, “in which we can contrive how to communicate with your uncle Mattio.  I must commend you highly for kissing M. Querini’s hand.  That was a masterstroke indeed.  All will go off well; but I hope you will be merry, for sadness I abhor.”

We were still at table when I heard the voice of M. Memmo in the ante-chamber; he was a young man, intelligent and good-natured.  I warned Marcoline not to say a word about our private affairs, but to display a moderate gaiety.  The servant announced the young nobleman, and we rose to welcome him; but he made us sit down again, and sat beside us, and drank a glass of wine with the utmost cordiality.  He told me how he had been supping with the old devotee Querini, who had had his hand kissed by a young and fair Venetian.  The ambassadors were much amused at the circumstance, and Querini himself, in spite of his scrupulous conscience, was greatly flattered.

“May I ask you, mademoiselle,” he added, “how you came to know M. Querini?”

“It’s a mystery, sir.”

“A mystery, is it?  What fun we shall have tomorrow!  I have come,” he said, addressing himself to me, “to ask you to dine with us to-morrow, and you must bring your charming niece.”