’Je ne me battrai pas; je te cede la place.  Si Venus est ma soeur, L’Amour est de ma race.  Je sais faire des vers.  Un instant de perdu N’offense pas L’Amour, si je l’ai convaincu.

“It is on my knees that I entreat your pardon, my heavenly friend, but how could I expect so much talent in a young daughter of Venice, only twenty-two years of age, and, above all, brought up in a convent?”

“I have a most insatiate desire to prove myself more and more worthy of you.  Did you think I was prudent at the gaming-table?”

“Prudent enough to make the most intrepid banker tremble.”

“I do not always play so well, but I had taken you as a partner, and I felt I could set fortune at defiance.  Why would you not play?”

“Because I had lost four thousand sequins last week and I was without money, but I shall play to-morrow, and fortune will smile upon me.  In the mean time, here is a small book which I have brought from your boudoir:  the postures of Pietro Aretino; I want to try some of them.”

“The thought is worthy of you, but some of these positions could not be executed, and others are insipid.”

“True, but I have chosen four very interesting ones.”

These delightful labours occupied the remainder of the night until the alarum warned us that it was time to part.  I accompanied my lovely nun as far as her gondola, and then went to bed; but I could not sleep.  I got up in order to go and pay a few small debts, for one of the greatest pleasures that a spendthrift can enjoy is, in my opinion, to discharge certain liabilities.  The gold won by my mistress proved lucky for me, for I did not pass a single day of the carnival without winning.

Three days after Twelfth Night, having paid a visit to the casino of Muran for the purpose of placing some gold in M——­ M——­ ’s bureau, the door-keeper handed me a letter from my nun.  Laura had, a few minutes before, delivered me one from C——­ C——.

My new mistress, after giving me an account of her health, requested me to enquire from my jeweller whether he had not by chance made a ring having on its bezel a St. Catherine which, without a doubt, concealed another portrait; she wished to know the secret of that ring.  “A young boarder,” she added, “a lovely girl, and my friend, is the owner of that ring.  There must be a secret, but she does not know it.”  I answered that I would do what she wished.  But here is the letter of C——­ C——.  It was rather amusing, because it placed me in a regular dilemma; it bore a late date, but the letter of M——­ M——­ had been written two days before it.