I am very fond of dramatic situations. You shall know all after
supper."

"Are we to have supper, then?"

"Certainly, if you would like it. I am a great eater myself and I hope
you will not let me eat alone."

"Then we will have some supper to please you. We will take care not to
eat much dinner, so as to be able to vie with you in the evening. The
only thing I am sorry about," added Mdlle. Q----, "is that you should be
put to such expense."

"It is a pleasure; and when I leave Milan I shall console myself with the
thought that I have supped with the two handsomest ladies in the town."

"How is fortune treating you?"

"Canano wins two hundred sequins from me every day."

"But you won two thousand from him in one night."

"You will break his bank on Sunday. We will bring you luck."

"Would you like to look on?"

"We should be delighted, but my brother says you don't want to go with
us."

"Quite so, the reason is that I should be recognized. But I believe the
gentleman who will accompany you is of the same figure as myself."

"Exactly the same," said the cousin; "except that he is fair."

"All the better," said I, "the fair always conquer the dark with ease."

"Not always," said the other. "But tell us, at any rate, whether we are
to wear men's dresses."

"Fie! fie! I should be angry with myself if I had entertained such a
thought."

"That's curious; why so?"

"I'll tell you. If the disguise is complete I am disgusted, for the shape
of a woman is much more marked than that of a man, and consequently a
woman in man's dress, who looks like a man, cannot have a good figure."

"But when a woman skews her shape well?"

"Then I am angry with her for skewing too much, for I like to see the
face and the general outlines of the form and to guess the rest."

"But the imagination is often deceptive!"

"Yes, but it is with the face that I always fall in love, and that never
deceives me as far as it is concerned. Then if I have the good fortune to
see anything more I am always in a lenient mood and disposed to pass over
small faults. You are laughing?"

"I am smiling at your impassioned arguments."

"Would you like to be dressed like a man?"

"I was expecting something of the kind, but after you have said we can
make no more objections."

"I can imagine what you would say; I should certainly not take you for
men, but I will say no more."

They looked at each other, and blushed and smiled as they saw my