“Has there been any talk of the masqued ball or of the mysterious masquers?”

“People talk of nothing else, and condole with us for not having been to the ball, but no one can guess who the beggars were.  It seems that an unknown carriage and four that sped like the wind took them as far as the first stage, and where they went next God alone knows!  It is said that my hair was false, and I have longed to let it down and thus give them the lie.  It is also said that you must know who the beggars were, as you loaded them with ducats.”

“One must let people say and believe what they like and not betray ourselves.”

“You are right; and after all we had a delightful evening.  If you acquit yourself of all commissions in the same way, you must be a wonderful man.”

“But it is only you who could give me such a commission.”

“I to-day, and another to-morrow.”

“I see you think I am inconstant, but believe me if I find favour in your eyes your face will ever dwell in my memory.”

“I am certain you have told a thousand girls the same story, and after they have admitted you to their favour you have despised them.”

“Pray do not use the word ‘despise,’ or I shall suppose you think me a monster.  Beauty seduces me.  I aspire to its possession, and it is only when it is given me from other motives than love that I despise it.  How should I despise one who loved me?  I should first be compelled to despise myself.  You are beautiful and I worship you, but you are mistaken if you think that I should be content for you to surrender yourself to me out of mere kindness.”

“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.”