a glowing little countess, as plump as an ortolan, dimpling with smiles, an ugly old husband at her side—­comes next.  It is whispered, unless the ugly old husband is blind as well as deaf, they will be separated, too, very shortly.  Young Civilla, a “golden youth,” is so very pressing.  He could live with Luisa at Naples—­a cheap place.  They might have gone on for years as a triangular household—­but for Civilla’s carelessness.  Civilla would always put out old Bernardini about the dinner. (Civilla dined at Bernardini’s house every day, as he would at a cafe.) Now, old Bernardini did not care a button that his little wife had a lover; it would not have been en regle if she had not—­nor did he care that his wife’s lover should dine with him every day—­not a bit—­but old Bernardini is a gourmand, and he does care to be kept waiting for his dinner.  He has lately confided to a friend, that he should be sorry to cause a scandal, but that he must separate from his wife if Civilla will not reform in the matter of the dinner-hour.  “He is getting old,” Bernardini says, “and his digestion suffers.”  No man keeps a French cook to be kept waiting for his dinner.

Luisa, who looks the picture of innocence, wears an unexceptionable pink dress, with a train that bodes ill-luck, and many apologies, to her partners.  A long train is Luisa’s little game. (Spite of Civilla, she has many other little games.) Fragments of the train fly about the room all the evening, and admirers take care that she shall see these picked up, fervently kissed, and stowed away as relics in breast-pockets.  One enthusiast pinned his fragment to his shoulder, like an order—­a knight of San Luisa, he called himself.

Teresa Ottolini, with her mother, has just arrived.  Being single, Teresa either is, or affects to be, excessively steady; no one would marry her if she were not—­not even the good-natured Orsetti.  Your Italian husband in futuro will pardon nothing in his wife that may be—­not even that her dress should be conspicuous, much less her manners.  Neither is it expedient that she should be seen much in society.  That dangerous phalanx of “golden youth” are ever on the watch, “gentlemen sportsmen,” to a man; their sport, woman.  If she goes out much these “golden youth” might compromise her.  Less than a breath upon a maiden’s name is social death.  That name must not be coupled with any man’s—­not coupled even in lightest parlance.  So the lady waits, waits until she has a husband—­it is more piquant to be a naughty wife than a fast miss—­then she makes her choice—­one, or a dozen—­it is a matter of taste.  Danger is added to vice; and that element of intrigue dear to the Italian soul, both male and female.  The jeunesse doree delight in mild danger—­a duel with swords, not pistols, with a foolish husband.  Why cannot he grin and bear it?—­others do.