“Do you know a Russian who calls himself Charles Ivanoff?”

“I saw him once at Grenoble.”

“It is said that he has escaped from Siberia, and that he is the younger son of the Duke of Courland.”

“So I have heard, but I know no proof of his claim to the title.”

“He is at Genoa, where it is said a banker is to give him twenty thousand crowns.  In spite of that, no one would give him a sou here, so I sent him to Genoa at my own expense, to rid the place of him.”

I felt very glad that the Russian had gone away before my arrival.  An officer named Ramini, who was staying at the same inn as myself, asked if I would mind taking charge of a packet which M. de St. Pierre, the Spanish consul, had to send to the Marquis Grimaldi, at Genoa.  It was the nobleman I had just seen at Avignon, and I was pleased to execute the commission.  The same officer asked me whether I had ever seen a certain Madame Stuard.

“She came here a fortnight ago with a man who calls himself her husband.  The poor devils hadn’t a penny, and she, a great beauty, enchanted everybody, but would give no one a smile or a word.”

“I have both seen and know her,” I answered.  “I furnished her with the means to come here.  How could she leave Nice without any money?”

“That’s just what no one can understand.  She went off in a carriage, and the landlord’s bill was paid.  I was interested in the woman.  The Marquis Grimaldi told me that she had refused a hundred louis he offered her, and that a Venetian of his acquaintance had fared just as badly.  Perhaps that is you?”

“It is, and I gave her some money despite my treatment.”

M. Peterson came to see me, and was enchanted with Rosalie’s amiable manner.  This was another conquest for her, and I duly complimented her upon it.

Nice is a terribly dull place, and strangers are tormented by the midges, who prefer them to the inhabitants.  However, I amused myself at a small bank at faro, which was held at a coffee-house, and at which Rosalie, whose play I directed, won a score of Piedmontese pistoles.  She put her little earnings into a purse, and told me she liked to have some money of her own.  I scolded her for not having told me so before, and reminded her of her promise.

“I don’t really want it,” said she, “it’s only my thoughtlessness.”

We soon made up our little quarrel.

In such ways did I make this girl my own, in the hope that for the remnant of my days she would be mine, and so I should not be forced to fly from one lady to another.  But inexorable fate ordained it otherwise.

The weather grew fine again, and we got on board once more, and the next day arrived at Genoa, which I had never seen before.  I put up at “St. Martin’s Inn,” and for decency’s sake took two rooms, but they were adjoining one another.  The following day I sent the packet to M. Grimaldi, and a little later I left my card at his palace.