The gallant made me a bow, and took his departure in no good humour.  Don Francisco was a young man of twenty-two, ugly and ill-made.  I resolved to nip the intrigue in the bud, for my inclination for Donna Ignazia was of the lightest description; and I went to call on Madame Pichona, who had given me such a polite invitation to come and see her.  I had made enquiries about her, and had found out that she was an actress and had been made rich by the Duke of Medina-Celi.  The duke had paid her a visit in very cold weather, and finding her without a fire, as she was too poor to buy coals, had sent her the next day a silver stove, which he had filled with a hundred thousand pezzos duros in gold, amounting to three hundred thousand francs in French money.  Since then Madame Pichona lived at her ease and received good company.

She gave me a warm reception when I called on her, but her looks were sad.  I began by saying that as I had not found her in her box on the last ball night I had ventured to come to enquire after her health.

“I did not go,” said she, “for on that day died my only friend the Duke of Medina-Celi.  He was ill for three days.”

“I sympathise with you.  Was the duke an old man?”

“Hardly sixty.  You have seen him; he did not look his age.”

“Where have I seen him?”

“Did he not bring you to my box?”

“You don’t say so!  He did not tell me his name and I never saw him before.”

I was grieved to hear of his death; it was in all probability a misfortune for me as well as Madame Pichona.  All the duke’s estate passed to a son of miserly disposition, who in his turn had a son who was beginning to evince the utmost extravagance.

I was told that the family of Medina-Celi enjoys thirty titles of nobility.

One day a young man called on me to offer me, as a foreigner, his services in a country which he knew thoroughly.

“I am Count Marazzini de Plaisance,” he began, “I am not rich and I have come to Madrid to try and make my fortune.  I hope to enter the bodyguard of his Catholic majesty.  I have been indulging in the amusements of the town ever since I came.  I saw you at the ball with an unknown beauty.  I don’t ask you to tell me her name, but if you are fond of novelty I can introduce you to all the handsomest girls in Madrid.”

If my experience had taught me such wholesome lessons as I might have expected, I should have shown the impudent rascal the door.  Alas!  I began to be weary of my experience and the fruits of it; I began to feel the horrors of a great void; I had need of some slight passion to wile away the dreary hours.  I therefore made this Mercury welcome, and told him I should be obliged by his presenting me to some beauties, neither too easy nor too difficult to access.

“Come with me to the ball,” he rejoined, “and I will shew you some women worthy of your attention.”