“But you forget your engagement to the Contessa Giulia,” said Ludovico; “surely you had better make haste to keep it.”

He had no belief whatever in any such engagement, and had a very faint hope that any care for consistency would avail to induce his friend the Conte Leandro to affect the necessity of keeping it.  But he also was perfectly determined not to leave him in the room with the strangers, though almost as much at a loss as Paolina how to prevent it.

“Oh, hang the Contessa Giulia!  In any case, it is too late to go to her now, and I am sure I shall like much better to stay here,” said Leandro.

“Very likely.  But you forget that it may not be equally agreeable to these ladies that you should remain here, and they just arrived from a journey too,” said the Marchese Ludovico, who was inwardly cursing his folly in having brought his friend with him on this errand, which he unquestionably would not have done had he had the remotest idea what manner of ladies they were that his uncle had deputed him to attend on.

“By-the-by, Leandro,” he said, suddenly, as he was moving towards the door, “you must come with me—­after all; for now I remember that the rooms I had in my mind were let a short time since, and the best thing we can do will be to go and look at those you spoke of.”

“Oh!  I will tell you where they are—­” said Leandro.

“No, no! that won’t do at all; come—­come along.  I won’t go there without you.  Come!” said the Marchese.

And this was said in a manner that had the effect of making Leandro take leave of the ladies, with many hopes that they might meet again ere long.

Very soon after the two young men were in the street together, Ludovico protested that he must call at the Circolo before attending to the business they were on; and when he got there he pretended to be obliged to run home for a minute to the Palazzo Castelmare, which was hard by, saying that he would return and rejoin the Conte Leandro in less than five minutes.  And very heartily did that deceived gentleman abuse his friend, when he had waited an hour, and found that he did not return at all.  Then, poor gentleman! he knew that he had been bamboozled,—­cruelly treated, as he said himself.  And he perfectly well understood his dear friend’s object, too!

“Such an intolerable, abominable coxcomb as that Ludovico is!  As if he fancied that nobody was to have a chance of speaking to that pretty girl but himself.  As if he thought that he had the ghost of a chance with a woman, if I thought it worth while to cut him out!” grumbled the gallant, gay Leandro to himself.

The Marchese Ludovico, meanwhile, the instant he had succeeded in freeing himself from his companion, darted off in search of an apartment, which he thought would just suit his fair clients; hurried back to them, at the inn; and had them installed in their new quarters by that evening.