"Bon Dieu! that horrid fat man has deserted Signora Venosta,--looking
for his own cloak, I dare say; selfish monster! Go and hand her to her
carriage; quick, it is announced!"

Graham, thus ordered, hastened to offer his arm to the she-mountebank.
Somehow she had acquired dignity in his eyes, and he did not feel the
least ashamed of being in contact with the scarlet jacket.

The Signora grappled to him with a confiding familiarity. "I am afraid,"
she said in Italian, as they passed along the spacious hall to the porte
cochere,--"I am afraid that I did not make a good effect to-night. I was
nervous; did not you perceive it?"

"No, indeed; you enchanted us all;" replied the dissimulator.

"How amiable you are to say so! You must think that I sought for a
compliment. So I did; you gave me more than I deserved. Wine is the
milk of old men, and praise of old women; but an old man may be killed by
too much wine, and an old woman lives all the longer for too much praise.
Buona notte."

Here she sprang, lithesomely enough, into the carriage, and Isaura
followed, escorted by M. Savarin. As the two men returned towards the
shawl-room, the Frenchman said, "Madame Savarin and I complain that you
have not let us see so much of you as we ought. No doubt you are greatly
sought after; but are you free to take your soup with us the day after
to-morrow? You will meet the Count von Rudesheim, and a few others more
lively if less wise."