“Ah!  I see it is my heart you want.”

“Exactly.”

“To make me wretched at the end of a fortnight.”

“To love you till death, and to obey your slightest wishes.”

“My slightest wishes?”

“Yes, for to me they would be inviolable laws.”

“Would you settle in Milan?”

“Certainly, if you made that a condition of my happiness.”

“What amuses me in all this is that you are deceiving me without knowing it, if indeed you really love me.”

“Deceiving you without knowing it!  That is something new.  If I am not aware of it, I am innocent of deceit.”

“I am willing to admit your innocency, but you are deceiving me none the less, for after you had ceased to love me no power of yours could bring love back again.”

“That, of course, might happen, but I don’t choose to entertain such unpleasant thoughts; I prefer to think of myself as loving you to all eternity.  It is certain at all events that no other woman in Milan has attracted me.”

“Not the pretty girl who waited on us, and whose arms you have possibly left an hour or, two ago?”

“What are you saying?  She is the wife of the tailor who made your clothes.  She left directly after you, and her husband would not have allowed her to come at all if he was not aware that she would be wanted to wait on the ladies whose dresses he had made.”

“She is wonderfully pretty.  Is it possible that you are not in love with her?”

“How could one love a woman who is at the disposal of a low, ugly fellow?  The only pleasure she gave me was by talking of you this morning.”

“Of me?”

“Yes.  You will excuse me if I confess to having asked her which of the ladies she waited on looked handsomest without her chemise.”

“That was a libertine’s question.  Well, what did she say?”

“That the lady with the beautiful hair was perfect in every respect.”

“I don’t believe a word of it.  I have learnt how to change my chemise with decency, and so as not to shew anything I might not shew a man.  She only wished to flatter your impertinent curiosity.  If I had a maid like that, she should soon go about her business.”

“You are angry with me.”

“No.”

“It’s no good saying no, your soul flashed forth in your denunciation.  I am sorry to have spoken.”

“Oh! it’s of no consequence.  I know men ask chambermaids questions of that kind, and they all give answers like your sweetheart, who perhaps wanted to make you curious about herself.”

“But how could she hope to do that by extolling your charms above those of the other ladies?  And, how could she know that I preferred you?”

“If she did not know it, I have made a mistake; but for all that, she lied to you.”

“She may have invented the tale, but I do not think she lied.  You are smiling again!  I am delighted.”