“Monsieur, I have no notion how to bear myself, what to say,” I answered uneasily.

“Say as little as you can.  For, I confess, your voice and your hands give me pause; otherwise I would take you anywhere for a lass.  Your part must be the shy maiden.  My faith, you look the role; your cheeks are poppies!  You will follow docile at my heels while I tell lies for two.  I have the hope that the ladies will heed me and my jewels more than you.”

“Monsieur, could we not go safelier at night?”

“I have thought of that.  But at night the household gathers in the salon; we should run the gantlet of a hundred looks and tongues.  While now, if we have luck, we may win to mademoiselle’s own chamber—­” He broke off abruptly, and walked along in a day-dream.

“Well,” he resumed presently, coming back to the needs of the moment, “let us know our names and station.  I am Giovanni Rossini, son of the famous goldsmith of Florence; you, Giulietta, my sister.  We came to Paris in the legate’s train, trade being dull at home, the gentry having fled to the hills for the hot month.  Of course you’ve never set foot out of France, Fe—­Giulietta?”

“Never out of St. Quentin till I came hither.  But Father Francesco has talked to me much of his city of Florence.”

“Good; you can then make shift to answer a question or two if put to it.  Your Italian, I swear, is of excellent quality.  You speak French like the Picard you are, but Italian like a gentleman—­that is to say, like a lady.”

“Monsieur,” I bemoaned miserably, “I shall never come through it alive, never in the world.  They will know me in the flick of an eye for a boy; I know they will.  Why, the folk we are passing can see something wrong; they all are staring at me.”

“Of course they stare,” he answered tranquilly.  “I should think some wrong if they did not.  Can your modesty never understand, my Giulietta, what a pretty lass you are?”

He fell to laughing at my discomfort, and thus, he full of gay confidence, I full of misgiving, we came before the doors of the Hotel de Lorraine.

“Courage,” he whispered to me.  “Courage will conquer the devil himself.  Put a good face on it and take the plunge.”  The next moment he was in the archway, deluging the sentry with his rapid Italian.

“Nom d’un chien!  What’s all this?  What are you after?” the man shouted at us, to make us understand the better.  “Haven’t you a word of honest French in your head?”

M. Etienne, tapping his box, very brokenly, very laboriously stammered forth something about jewels for the ladies.

“Get in with you, then.”

We were not slow to obey.

The courtyard was deserted, nor did we see any one in the windows of the house, against which the afternoon sun struck hotly.  To keep out his unwelcome rays, the house door was pushed almost shut.  We paused a moment on the step, to listen to the voices of gossiping lackeys within, and then M. Etienne boldly knocked.