ady on the pleasant surprise.

I expected that she would play her part as well as I had played mine, but
I was wrong. In her rage she told him that she would never have asked me
to give her a cup of coffee if she had foreseen this piece of
importunity, adding that if he had been a gentleman he would have known
better than to intrude himself at such an hour.

In spite of my own anger I felt that I must take the poor devil's part;
he looked like a dog with a tin kettle tied to his tail. I tried to calm
Donna Ignazia, telling her that Don Francisco had seen us by a mere
accident, and that it was I who had asked him to come upstairs, in the
hope of pleasing her.

Donna Ignazia feigned to be persuaded and asked her lover to sit down,
but she did not speak another word to him, confining her remarks to me,
saying how much she had enjoyed the ball, and how kind I had been to take
her cousins.

After he had taken a cup of coffee, Don Francisco bade us a good night. I
told him I hoped he would come and see me before Lent was over, but Donna
Ignazia only vouchsafed him a slight nod. When he had gone she said,
sadly enough, that she was sorry he had deprived us both of our pleasure,
and that she was sure Don Francisco was still hanging about the place,
and that she dared not expose herself to his vengeance. "So take me home,
but if you love me come and see me again. The trick the stupid fellow has
played me shall cost him dear. Are you sure I don't love him?"

"Quite certain, for you love me too well to love anybody else."

Donna Ignazia gave me a hasty proof of her affection, and I escorted her
home, assuring her that she would be the sole object of my thoughts as
long as I stayed at Madrid.

The next day I dined with Mengs, and the day after that I was accosted in
the street by an ill-looking fellow, who bade me follow him to a
cloister, as he had something of importance to communicate to me.

As soon as he saw that we were unobserved, he told me that the Alcalde
Messa was going to pay me a visit that same night with a band of police,
"of whom," he added, "I am one. He knows you have concealed weapons in
your room. He knows, or thinks he knows, certain other things which
authorize him to seize your person and to take you to the prison where
persons destined for the galleys are kept. I give you all this warning
because I believe you to be a man of honour. Despise not my advice, but
look to yourself, and get into some place