“I am glad,” he said, “that you gave her francs instead of the sequins you got from Triulzi, and I hope, as Triulzi said, you will have luck with it at the bank.”

“I am not going to the opera,” said I, “but to the masked ball, and I don’t want anyone to recognize me.”

I begged him to go and buy me a new domino, and not to come near me in the evening, so that none but he should know who I was.  As soon as he had gone out I began to write letters.  I had heavy arrears to make up in that direction.

The count brought me my domino at noon, and after hiding it we went to dine with the countess.  Her affability, politeness, and gentleness astounded me.  She looked so sweetly pretty that I repented having outraged her so scandalously.  Her insensibility of the evening before seemed inconceivable, and I began to suspect that the signs I had noticed to the contrary were only due to the animal faculties which are specially active in sleep.

“Was she really asleep,” said I to myself, “when I was outraging her so shamefully?”

I hoped it had been so.  When her husband left us alone, I said, humbly and tenderly, that I knew I was a monster, and that she must detest me.

“You a monster?” said she.  “On the contrary I owe much to you, and there is nothing I can think of for which I have cause to reproach you.”

I took her hand, tenderly, and would have carried it to my lips, but she drew it away gently and gave me a kiss.  My repentance brought a deep blush to my face.

When I got back to my room I sealed my letters and went to the ball.  I was absolutely unrecognizable.  Nobody had ever seen my watches or my snuff-boxes before, and I had even changed my purses for fear of anybody recognizing me by them.

Thus armed against the glances of the curious, I sat down at Canano’s table and commenced to play in quite a different fashion.  I had a hundred Spanish pieces in my pocket worth seven hundred Venetian sequins.  I had got this Spanish money from Greppi, and I took care not to use what Triulzi had given me for fear he should know me.

I emptied my purse on the table, and in less than an hour it was all gone.  I rose from the table and everybody thought I was going to beat a retreat, but I took out another purse and put a hundred sequins on one card, going second, with paroli, seven, and the va.  The stroke was successful and Canano gave me back my hundred Spanish pieces, on which I sat down again by the banker, and recommenced regular play.  Canano was looking at me hard.  My snuff-box was the one which the Elector of Cologne had given me, with the prince’s portrait on the lid.  I took a pinch of snuff and he gave me to understand that he would like one too, and the box was subjected to a general examination.  A lady whom I did not know said the portrait represented the Elector of Cologne in his robes as Grand Master of the Teutonic Order.  The box was returned to