But Alfonso sighed for Lucrezia d'Alagna,
a beautiful chaste statue of ice who loved him; whereas I crave the
warm-blooded thing that is mine for the taking, but no more loves me
than she loves the policeman who salutes her on his beat. I cannot take
her. Something stronger than my passion opposes an adamantine barrier. I
love her with my soul as well as with my body, and my soul cries out for
the soul that the Almighty forgot when endowing her with entity.

This evening a letter from the Editor of The Quarterly Review. It would
give him great pleasure if I would contribute a Renaissance article,
taking as my text a German, a Russian, and an English attempt to
whitewash the Borgia family. Six months ago the compliment would have
filled me with gratification. To-day what to me are the whitewashed
Borgias or the solemn denizens of the Athenaeum reading-room who will
slumber over my account of the blameless poisonings of this amiable
family? They are vanity and vexation of a spirit already sore at ease.

As I write the door creaks. I look up. Behold Carlotta in hastily
slipped on dressing-gown, open in front, her hair streaming loose to her
waist, her bare feet flashing pink beneath her night-dress.

"Oh, Seer Marcous, darling, I am so frightened!"

She ran forward and caught the lappels of my coat as I rose from my
chair.

"What is the matter?"

"There is a mouse in my bed."

Polyphemus saved the situation by jumping from the sofa and rubbing his
back against her feet.

"Take the cat and tell him to kill it," said I, "and go back to bed at
once."

I must have spoken roughly, for she regarded me with her great eyes full
of innocent reproach.

"There, take up the cat and go," I repeated. "You mustn't come down here
looking like that."

"I thought I looked very pretty," said Carlotta, moving a step nearer.

I sat down at my writing-table and fixed my eyes on my paper.

"You are like a Houri that has been sent away from Paradise for
misbehaviour," I said.

She laughed her curious cooing laugh.

"_Hou!_ Seer Marcous is shocked!" And she ran, away, rubbing
Polyphemus's nose against her face.

I wonder if the Devil, having grown infirm, is mixing up his centuries
and mistaking me for a mediaeval saint? Paphnutius for instance, who was
visited by such a seductress. What is the legend? To get rid of her he
burns off his hand, whereupon she falls dead. He prays and she returns
to life and becomes a nun. No, M