fair one, seated in front of a dressing-table blazing with
wax lights, was unfastening her frippery with the utmost calmness.

"Ring for Giulia," said she; "I want to get my dress off."

At that instant, the Duke noticed that the supper had been disturbed; he
looked round the room, and discovered the Prince's trousers hanging over
a chair at the foot of the bed.

"Clarina, I will not ring!" cried the Duke, in a shrill voice of
fury. "I will not play the violin this evening, nor tomorrow, nor ever
again--"

"Ta, ta, ta, ta!" sang Clarina, on the four octaves of the same note,
leaping from one to the next with the ease of a nightingale.

"In spite of that voice, which would make your patron saint Clara
envious, you are really too impudent, you rascally hussy!"

"You have not brought me up to listen to such abuse," said she, with
some pride.

"Have I brought you up to hide a man in your bed? You are unworthy alike
of my generosity and of my hatred--"

"A man in my bed!" exclaimed Clarina, hastily looking round.

"And after daring to eat our supper, as if he were at home," added the
Duke.

"But am I not at home?" cried Emilio. "I am the Prince of Varese; this
palace is mine."

As he spoke, Emilio sat up in bed, his handsome and noble Venetian head
framed in the flowing hangings.

At first Clarina laughed--one of those irrepressible fits of laughter
which seize a girl when she meets with an adventure comic beyond all
conception. But her laughter ceased as she saw the young man, who, as
has been said, was remarkably handsome, though but lightly attired; the
madness that possessed Emilio seized her, too, and, as she had no one to
adore, no sense of reason bridled her sudden fancy--a Sicilian woman in
love.

"Although this is the palazzo Memmi, I will thank your Highness to
quit," said the Duke, assuming the cold irony of a polished gentleman.
"I am at home here."

"Let me tell you, Monsieur le Duc, that you are in my room, not in your
own," said Clarina, rousing herself from her amazement. "If you have any
doubts of my virtue, at any rate give me the benefit of my crime--"

"Doubts! Say proof positive, my lady!"

"I swear to you that I am innocent," replied Clarina.

"What, then, do I see in that bed?" asked the Duke.

"Old Ogre!" cried Clarina. "If you believe your eyes rather than my
assertion, you have ceased to love me. Go, and do not weary my ears!
Do you hear? Go, Monsieur le Duc. This young Princ