“I think of paying my suit to him to-morrow,” said I.

“Do so, for I have never heard his eminence speak of anyone with as much consideration as he speaks of yourself.”

“He has been very kind to me, and I shall always be grateful to him.”

The cardinal received me the next day with every sign of delight at seeing me.  He praised the reserve with which I had spoken of him to the prince, and said he need not remind me of the necessity for discretion as to our old Venetian adventures.

“Your eminence,” I said, “is a little stouter, otherwise you look as fresh as ever and not at all changed.”

“You make a mistake.  I am very different from what I was then.  I am fifty-five now, and then I was thirty-six.  Moreover, I am reduced to a vegetable diet.”

“Is that to keep down the lusts of the flesh?”

“I wish people would think so; but no one does, I am afraid.”

He was glad to hear that I bore a letter to the Venetian ambassador, which I had not yet presented.  He said he would take care to give the ambassador a prejudice in my favour, and that he would give me a good reception.

“We will begin to break the ice to-morrow,” added this charming cardinal.  “You shall dine with me, and his excellence shall hear of it.”

He heard with pleasure that I was well provided for as far as money was concerned, and that I had made up my mind to live simply and discreetly so long as I remained in Rome.

“I shall write about you to M——­ M——­,” he said.  “I have always kept up a correspondence with that delightful nun.”

I then amused him by the, talk of my adventure with the nun of Chamberi.

“You ought to ask the Prince of Santa Croce to introduce you to the princess.  We might pass some pleasant hours with her, though not in our old Venetian style, for the princess is not at all like M——­ M——.

“And yet she serves to amuse your eminence?”

“Well, I have to be content with what I can get.”

The next day as I was getting up from dinner the cardinal told me that M. Zuliani had written about me to the ambassador, who would be delighted to make my acquaintance, and when I went I had an excellent reception from him.

The Chevalier Erizzo, who is still alive, was a man of great intelligence, common sense, and oratorical power.  He complimented me on my travels and on my being protected by the State Inquisitors instead of being persecuted by them.  He kept me to dinner, and asked me to dine with him whenever I had no other engagement.

The same evening I met Prince Santa Croce at the duchess’s, and asked him to introduce me to his wife.

“I have been expecting that,” he replied “even since the cardinal talked to her about you for more than an hour.  You can call any day at eleven in the morning or two in the afternoon.”