The invitation was pressing; I could not guess what had caused it, but the tone of the letter did not forebode anything unpleasant.  I went to church, where I was sure that Cardinal Acquaviva would see me, and he did.  After mass, his eminence beckoned to me.

“Are you truly ill?” he enquired.

“No, monsignor, I was only sleepy.”

“I am very glad to hear it; but you are wrong, for you are loved.  Cardinal S. C. has been bled this morning.”

“I know it, monsignor.  The cardinal tells me so in this note, in which he invites me to dine with him, with your excellency’s permission.”

“Certainly.  But this is amusing!  I did not know that he wanted a third person.”

“Will there be a third person?”

“I do not know, and I have no curiosity about it.”

The cardinal left me, and everybody imagined that his eminence had spoken to me of state affairs.

I went to my new Maecenas, whom I found in bed.

“I am compelled to observe strict diet,” he said to me; “I shall have to let you dine alone, but you will not lose by it as my cook does not know it.  What I wanted to tell you is that your stanzas are, I am afraid, too pretty, for the marchioness adores them.  If you had read them to me in the same way that she does, I could never have made up my mind to offer them.”  “But she believes them to be written by your eminence?”

“Of course.”

“That is the essential point, monsignor.”

“Yes; but what should I do if she took it into her head to compose some new stanzas for me?”

“You would answer through the same pen, for you can dispose of me night and day, and rely upon the utmost secrecy.”

“I beg of you to accept this small present; it is some negrillo snuff from Habana, which Cardinal Acquaviva has given me.”

The snuff was excellent, but the object which contained it was still better.  It was a splendid gold-enamelled box.  I received it with respect, and with the expression of the deepest gratitude.

If his eminence did not know how to write poetry, at least he knew how to be generous, and in a delicate manner, and that science is, at least in my estimation, superior to the other for a great nobleman.

At noon, and much to my surprise, the beautiful marchioness made her appearance in the most elegant morning toilet.

“If I had known you were in good company,” she said to the cardinal, “I would not have come.”

“I am sure, dear marchioness, you will not find our dear abbe in the way.”

“No, for I believe him to be honest and true.”

I kept at a respectful distance, ready to go away with my splendid snuff-box at the first jest she might hurl at me.

The cardinal asked her if she intended to remain to dinner.

“Yes,” she answered; “but I shall not enjoy my dinner, for I hate to eat alone.”

“If you would honour him so far, the abbe would keep you company.”