ernate complaints and consolations. We swore to be faithful for
ever, and our oaths were sincere, as ardent lovers' oaths always are. But
they are as nought unless they are sealed by destiny, and that no mortal
mind may know.

Rosalie, whose eyes were red and wet with tears, spent most of the
morning in packing up with Veronique, who cried too. I could not look at
her, as I felt angry with myself for thinking how pretty she was. Rosalie
would only take two hundred sequins, telling me that if she wanted more
she could easily let me know.

She told Veronique to look after me well for the two or three days I
should spend at Genoa, made me a mute curtsy, and went out with Costa to
get a sedan-chair. Two hours after, a servant of the marquis's came to
fetch her belongings, and I was thus left alone and full of grief till
the marquis came and asked me to give him supper, advising that Veronique
should be asked in to keep us company.

"That's a rare girl," said he, "you really don't know her, and you ought
to know her better."

Although I was rather surprised, I did not stop to consider what the
motives of the crafty Genoese might be, and I went and asked Veronique to
come in. She replied politely that she would do so, adding that she knew
how great an honour I did her.

I should have been the blindest of men if I had not seen that the clever
marquis had succeeded in his well-laid plans, and that he had duped me as
if I had been the merest freshman. Although I hoped with all my heart
that I should get Rosalie back again, I had good reasons for suspecting
that all the marquis's wit would be employed to seduce her, and I could
not help thinking that he would succeed.

Nevertheless, in the position I was in, I could only keep my fears to
myself and let him do his utmost.

He was nearly sixty, a thorough disciple of Epicurus, a heavy player,
rich, eloquent, a master of state-craft, highly popular at Genoa, and
well acquainted with the hearts of men, and still more so with the hearts
of women. He had spent a good deal of time at Venice to be more at
liberty, and to enjoy the pleasures of life at his ease. He had never
married, and when asked the reason would reply that he knew too well that
women would be either tyrants or slaves, and that he did not want to be a
tyrant to any woman, nor to be under any woman's orders. He found some
way of returning to his beloved Venice, in spite of the law forbidding
any noble who has fil