"I have long had a presentiment," said Lumley to his councillor SELF, as
he walked to Great George Street, "that that wild girl has conceived a
romantic fancy for Maltravers. But I can easily prevent such an
accident ripening into misfortune. Meanwhile, I have secured a tool, if
I want one. By Jove, what an ass that poet is! But so was Cassio; yet
Iago made use of him. If Iago had been born now, and dropped that
foolish fancy for revenge, what a glorious fellow he would have been!
Prime minister at least!"

Pale, haggard, exhausted, Castruccio Cesarini, traversing a length of
way, arrived at last at a miserable lodging in the suburb of Chelsea.
His fortune was now gone; gone in supplying the poorest food to a
craving and imbecile vanity: gone, that its owner might seem what nature
never meant him for: the elegant Lothario, the graceful man of pleasure,
the troubadour of modern life! gone in horses, and jewels, and fine
clothes, and gaming, and printing unsaleable poems on gilt-edged vellum;
gone, that he might not be a greater but a more fashionable man than
Ernest Maltravers! Such is the common destiny of those poor adventurers
who confine fame to boudoirs and saloons. No matter whether they be
poets or dandies, wealthy /parvenus/ or aristocratic cadets, all equally
prove the adage that the wrong paths to reputation are strewed with the
wrecks of peace, fortune, happiness, and too often honour! And yet this
poor young man had dared to hope for the hand of Florence Lascelles! He
had the common notion of foreigners, that English girls marry for love,
are very romantic; that, within the three seas, heiresses are as
plentiful as blackberries; and for the rest, his vanity had been so
pampered, that it now insinuated itself into every fibre of his
intellectual and moral system.

Cesarini looked cautiously round, as he arrived at his door; for he