though irrecoverable experiences eclipse the consciousness of the
shadows that encompassed his present, that he was on the point of
telling the story of a pale but pretty girl who in a twilit church at
Mantua had confided her love troubles to him--absolutely forgetting that
this same girl, sixteen years older, now sat at the table before him
as the wife of his friend Olivo--when the maid came in to say that the
carriage was waiting. Instantly, with his incomparable talent for doing
the right thing, Casanova rose to bid adieu. He again pressed Olivo, who
was too much affected to speak, to bring wife and children to visit him
in Venice. Having embraced his friend, he approached Amalia with
intent to embrace her also, but she held out her hand and he kissed it
affectionately.

When he turned to Marcolina, she said: "You ought to write down
everything you told us this evening, Chevalier, and a great deal more,
just as you have penned the story of your flight from The Leads."

"Do you really mean that, Marcolina?" he enquired, with the shyness of a
young author.

She smiled with gentle mockery, saying: "I fancy such a book might prove
far more entertaining than your polemic against Voltaire."

"Very likely," he thought. "Perhaps I may follow your advice some day.
If so, you, Marcolina, shall be the theme of the last chapter."

This notion, and still more the thought that the last chapter was to be
lived through that very night, made his face light up so strangely that
Marcolina, who had given him her hand in farewell, drew it away
again before he could stoop to kiss it. Without betraying either