to suffer
from the absence of her spouse.

Just as we were finishing supper, an Englishman, who had been of the
whist party, came up and told Walpole that the Italian had been caught
cheating and had given the lie to their fellow Englishman, who had
detected him, and that they had gone out together. An hour afterwards the
Englishman returned with two wounds, one on the fore-arm and one on the
shoulder. It was a trifling affair altogether.

Next day, after I had had dinner with the Comte d'Afri, I found a letter
from Piccolomini, with an enclosure addressed to the countess, waiting
for me at the inn. He begged me to give his wife the letter, which would
inform her of his plans, and then to bring her to the Ville de Lyon at
Amsterdam, where he was staying. He wanted to know how the Englishman
whom he had wounded was getting on.

The duty struck me as an amusing one, and I should have laughed with all
my heart if I had felt the least desire to profit by the confidence he
was pleased to place in me. Nevertheless I went up to the countess, whom
I found sitting up in bed playing with Walpole. She read the letter, told
me that she could not start till the day following, and informed me what
time she would go, as if it had been all settled; but I smiled
sardonically, and told her that my business kept me at the Hague, and
that I could not possibly escort her. When Walpole heard me say this he
offered to be my substitute, to which she agreed. They set out the day
following, intending to lie at Leyden.

Two days after their departure, I was sitting down to dinner with the
usual company, increased by two Frenchmen who had just come. After the
soup one of them said, coolly,

"The famous Casanova is now in Holland."

"Is he?" said the other, "I shall be glad to see him, and ask for an
explanation which he will not like."

I looked at the man, and feeling certain that I had never seen him before
I began to get enraged; but I merely asked the fellow if he knew
Casanova.

"I'll ought to know him," said he, in that self-satisfied tone which is
always so unpleasant.

"Nay, sir, you are mistaken; I am Casanova."

Without losing his self-possession, he replied, insolently,

"You are really very much mistaken if you think you are the only Casanova
in the world."

It was a sharp answer, and put me in the wrong. I bit my lips and held my
tongue, but I was grievously offended, and determined to make him find
the Casanova who w