As I wished not to neglect Gama’s advice, I presented myself at the mansion of the beautiful marchioness at the hour at which everyone had free access to her ladyship.  I saw her, I saw the cardinal and a great many abbes; but I might have supposed myself invisible, for no one honoured me with a look, and no one spoke to me.  I left after having performed for half an hour the character of a mute.  Five or six days afterwards, the marchioness told me graciously that she had caught a sight of me in her reception-rooms.

“I was there, it is true, madam; but I had no idea that I had had the honour to be seen by your ladyship.”

“Oh!  I see everybody.  They tell me that you have wit.”

“If it is not a mistake on the part of your informants, your ladyship gives me very good news.”

“Oh! they are excellent judges.”

“Then, madam, those persons must have honoured me with their conversation; otherwise, it is not likely that they would have been able to express such an opinion.”

“No doubt; but let me see you often at my receptions.”

Our conversation had been overheard by those who were around; his excellency the cardinal told me that, when the marchioness addressed herself particularly to me in French, my duty was to answer her in the same language, good or bad.  The cunning politician Gama took me apart, and remarked that my repartees were too smart, too cutting, and that, after a time, I would be sure to displease.  I had made considerable progress in French; I had given up my lessons, and practice was all I required.  I was then in the habit of calling sometimes upon Lucrezia in the morning, and of visiting in the evening Father Georgi, who was acquainted with the excursion to Frascati, and had not expressed any dissatisfaction.

Two days after the sort of command laid upon me by the marchioness, I presented myself at her reception.  As soon as she saw me, she favoured me with a smile which I acknowledged by a deep reverence; that was all.  In a quarter of an hour afterwards I left the mansion.  The marchioness was beautiful, but she was powerful, and I could not make up my mind to crawl at the feet of power, and, on that head, I felt disgusted with the manners of the Romans.

One morning towards the end of November the advocate, accompanied by Angelique’s intended, called on me.  The latter gave me a pressing invitation to spend twenty-four hours at Tivoli with the friends I had entertained at Frascati.  I accepted with great pleasure, for I had found no opportunity of being alone with Lucrezia since the Festival of St. Ursula.  I promised to be at Donna Cecilia’s house at day-break with the same ‘is-a-vis’.  It was necessary to start very early, because Tivoli is sixteen miles from Rome, and has so many objects of interest that it requires many hours to see them all.  As I had to sleep out that night, I craved permission to do so from the cardinal himself, who, hearing with whom I was going, told me that I was quite right not to lose such an opportunity of visiting that splendid place in such good society.