‘Not twice!’ thundered Beppo, with a furrowed red forehead.

There was a noble look about the fellow as he stood with stiff legs in a posture, frowning—­theatrical, but noble also; partly the look of a Figaro defending his honour in extremity, yet much like a statue of a French Marshal of the Empire.

‘That will do,’ said Laura, rising.  She was about to leave him, when the Duchess of Graatli’s chasseur was ushered in, bearing a missive from Amalia, her friend.  She opened it and read:—­

   ’Best beloved,—­Am I soon to be reminded bitterly that there is a
   river of steel between my heart and me?

’Fail not in coming to-night.  Your new Bulbul is in danger.  The silly thing must have been reading Roman history.  Say not no!  It intoxicates you all.  I watch over her for my Laura’s sake:  a thousand kisses I shower on you, dark delicious soul that you are!  Are you not my pine-grove leading to the evening star?  Come, that we may consult how to spirit her away during her season of peril.  Gulfs do not close over little female madcaps, my Laura; so we must not let her take the leap.  Enter the salle when you arrive:  pass down it once and return upon your steps; then to my boudoir.  My maid Aennchen will conduct you.  Addio.  Tell this messenger that you come.  Laura mine, I am for ever thy

‘Amalia.’

Laura signalled to the chasseur that her answer was affirmative.  As he was retiring, his black-plumed hat struck against Beppo, who thrust him aside and gave the hat a dexterous kick, all the while keeping a decorous front toward the signora.  She stood meditating.  The enraged chasseur mumbled a word or two for Beppo’s ear, in execrable Italian, and went.  Beppo then commenced bowing half toward the doorway, and tried to shoot through, out of sight and away, in a final droop of excessive servility, but the signora stopped him, telling him to consider himself her servant until the morning; at which he manifested a surprising readiness, indicative of nothing short of personal devotion, and remained for two minutes after she had quitted the room.  So much time having elapsed, he ran bounding down the stairs and found the hall-door locked, and that he was a prisoner during the signora’s pleasure.  The discovery that he was mastered by superior cunning, instead of disconcerting, quieted him wonderfully; so he put by the resources of his ingenuity for the next opportunity, and returned stealthily to his starting-point, where the signora found him awaiting her with composure.  The man was in mortal terror lest he might be held guilty of a trust betrayed, in leaving his mistress for an hour, even in obedience to her command, at this crisis:  but it was not in his nature to state the case openly to the signora, whom he knew to be his mistress’s friend, or to think of practising other than shrewd evasion to accomplish his duty and satisfy his conscience.