y
charming ball, to come as I do to your house, after the manner we parted
eighteen months ago at Naples. Listen!--one goes for health-sake to
Naples to pass the winter, to enjoy the Carnival in peace. After one or
two intrigues with beautiful women having dark eyes, not, however,
comparable with those of the Duchess of Palma, one fine night in the
middle of a Pulcinello supper, you send us in place of a dessert a
company of black-looking _sbirri_, who rush like vultures upon us, and
rust with dirty hands our Venetian daggers which they wrest from us.
Twelve to three, they then separate Taddeo, Von Apsbury and myself, and
placing us in rickety carriages, take one of us to prison, another to
the frontier, and hurry me on board a miserable little vessel, from
which they tumble me like a package of damaged goods on the _quai_ of
Marseilles. I had expected to make the tour of Italy."

"Vicompte," said the Duke, with a smile, "the air of Italy was not
healthy for you. Very excellent physicians told me your life was unsafe
in that country, and that you should leave it as soon as possible. So
complain to the faculty, but thank me for having followed their
directions."

"Now what mistakes," said the young man, "people make. I have always
heard that the climate of Naples was excellent for the chest."

"True," said the Duke, "but it is bad for the head."

"Of that I know something," said Monte-Leone, bowing to the Duke.

"Well, then, suppose it is," continued d'Harcourt, who wished at any
price to avenge himself on the _sbirri_ of his Excellency, in the person
of the Duke himself. "It may be the climate exaggerates and sometimes
destroys the head, but it is excellent for the heart--a suffering
heart--a heart which is attacked is easily cured in Naples. True, the
remedies are sometimes priceless, but patients in desperate cases do not
hesitate on that account."

"I hope, Count," said the Duke, who would not understand the allusion of
the young man to his marriage, "that the climate of Paris suits you
better than that of Naples. Besides, the Duc d'Harcourt, your father,
that most influential nobleman, will prevent you henceforth from
endangering an existence you held too cheaply in Italy."

"Luckily," said D'Harcourt, with a smile, "your Excellency watched over
me, and it is no slight honor to have as a physician the minister of
police of a kingdom. Excuse me, however," added he to the Duke, "I hear
the prelude of Collinet'