True enough!  I thought, eying the shapely white hand with which he just then stroked his dark mustache; the same hand on which my family diamond ring glittered like a star.  He looked up suddenly.

“Go on, conte I am all impatience.  Who comes next?”

“More fire-eaters, I suppose you will call them,” I answered, “and French fire-eaters, too.  Monsieur le Marquis D’Avencourt, and le beau Capitaine Eugene de Hamal.”

Ferrari looked astonished.  “Per Bacco!” he exclaimed.  “Two noted Paris duelists!  Why—­what need have you of such valorous associates?  I confess your choice surprises me.”

“I understood them to be your friends,” I said, composedly.  “If you remember, you introduced me to them.  I know nothing of the gentlemen beyond that they appear to be pleasant fellows and good talkers.  As for their reputed skill I am inclined to set that down to a mere rumor, at any rate, my dinner-table will scarcely provide a field for the display of swordsmanship.”

Guido laughed.  “Well, no! but these fellows would like to make it one—­why, they will pick a quarrel for the mere lifting of an eyebrow.  And the rest of your company?”

“Are the inseparable brother sculptors Carlo and Francesco Respetti, Chevalier Mancini, scientist and man of letters, Luziano Salustri, poet and musician, and the fascinating Marchese Ippolito Gualdro, whose conversation, as you know, is more entrancing than the voice of Adelina Patti.  I have only to add,” and I smiled half mockingly, “the name of Signor Guido Ferrari, true friend and loyal lover—­and the party is complete.”

“Altro!  Fifteen in all including yourself,” said Ferrari, gayly, enumerating them on his fingers.  “Per la madre di Dio!  With such a goodly company and a host who entertains en roi we shall pass a merry time of it.  And did you, amico, actually organize this banquet, merely to welcome back so unworthy a person as myself?”

“Solely and entirely for that reason,” I replied.

He jumped up from his chair and clapped his two hands on my shoulders.

“A la bonne heure!  But why, In the name of the saints or the devil, have you taken such a fancy to me?”

“Why have I taken such a fancy to you?” I repeated, slowly.  “My dear Ferrari, I am surely not alone in my admiration for your high qualities!  Does not every one like you?  Are you not a universal favorite?  Do you not tell me that your late friend the Count Romani held you as the dearest to him in the world after his wife?  Ebbene!  Why underrate yourself?”

He let his hands fall slowly from my shoulders and a look of pain contracted his features.  After a little silence he said: 

“Fabio again!  How his name and memory haunt me!  I told you he was a fool—­it was part of his folly that he loved me too well—­perhaps.  Do you know I have thought of him very much lately?”

“Indeed?” and I feigned to be absorbed in fixing a star-like japonica in my button-hole.  “How is that?”