Ferrari hesitated and looked at me earnestly.

“You—­will visit her—­she may rely on your coming for a certainty, I hope?”

I smiled.  “You seem very anxious about it.  May I ask why?”

“I think,” he replied at once, “that it would embarrass the countess very much if you gave her no opportunity to thank you for so munificent and splendid a gift—­and unless she knew she could do so, I am certain she would not accept it.”

“Make yourself quite easy,” I answered.  “She shall thank me to her heart’s content.  I give you my word that within a few days I will call upon the lady—­in fact you said you would introduce me—­I accept your offer!”

He seemed delighted, and seizing my hand, shook it cordidially.

“Then in that case I will gladly take the jewels to her,” he exclaimed.  “And I may say, count, that had you searched the whole world over, you could not have found one whose beauty was more fitted to show them off to advantage.  I assure you her loveliness is of a most exquisite character!”

“No doubt!” I said, dryly.  “I take your word for it.  I am no judge of a fair face or form.  And now, my good friend, do not think me churlish if I request you leave me in solitude for the present.  Between three and four o’clock I shall be at your studio.”

He rose at once to take his leave.  I placed the oaken box of jewels in the leathern case which had been made to contain it, strapped and locked it, and handed it to him together with its key.  He was profuse in his compliments and thanks—­almost obsequious, in truth—­ and I discovered another defect in his character—­a defect which, as his friend in former days, I had guessed nothing of.  I saw that very little encouragement would make him a toady—­a fawning servitor on the wealthy—­and in our old time of friendship I had believed him to be far above all such meanness, but rather of a manly, independent nature that scorned hypocrisy.  Thus we are deluded even by our nearest and dearest—­and is it well or ill for us, I wonder, when we are at last undeceived?  Is not the destruction of illusion worse than illusion itself?  I thought so, as my quondam friend clasped my hand in farewell that morning.  What would I not have given to believe in him as I once did!  I held open the door of my room as he passed out, carrying the box of jewels for my wife, and as I bade him a brief adieu, the well-worn story of Tristram and Kind Mark came to my mind.  He, Guido, like Tristram, would in a short space clasp the gemmed necklace round the throat of one as fair and false as the fabled Iseulte, and I—­should I figure as the wronged king?  How does the English laureate put it in his idyl on the subject?

“‘Mark’s way,’ said Mark, and clove him through the brain.”