And so on, for a couple of hours, in the cold, dimly-lighted room until her excellency has had enough of it and rises to go to bed, when the parasites all scuttle away and quarrel with each other in the street as they walk home.  Night after night, to decades of years, the old lady recounts the little journal of her day to the admiring listeners, whose chorus of approval is performed daily with the same unvarying regularity.  The times are changing now; the prince is not so easily amused, and the sycophant has accordingly acquired the art of amusing, but there still survive some wonderful monuments of the old school.

Anastase Gouache was a man of great talent and of rising fame, but like other men of his stamp he preferred to believe that he was received on a friendly footing for his own sake rather than on account of his reputation.  In his own eyes, he was, as a man, as good as those with whom he associated, and had as much right to make love to Faustina Montevarchi as the young Frangipani, for whom her father destined her.  Faustina, on her part, was too young to appreciate the real strength of the prejudices by which she was surrounded.  She could not understand that, although the man she loved was a gentleman, young, good-looking, successful, and not without prospects of acquiring a fortune, he was yet wholly ineligible as a husband.  Had she seen this ever so clearly it might have made but little difference in her feelings; but she did not see it, and the disparaging remarks about Anastase, which she occasionally heard in her own family, seemed to her utterly unjust as well as quite unfounded.  The result was that the two young people were preparing for themselves one of those terrible disappointments of which the consequences are sometimes felt during a score of years.  Both, however, were too much in love to bear suspense very long without doing something to precipitate the course of events, and whenever they had the chance they talked the matter over and built wonderful castles in the air.

About a fortnight after the marriage of San Giacinto they were seated together in a room full of people, late in the afternoon.  They had been talking for some time upon indifferent subjects.  When two persons meet who are very much in love with each other, and waste their time in discussing topics of little importance, it may be safely predicted that something unusual is about to occur.

“I cannot endure this suspense any longer,” said Gouache at last.

“Nor I,” answered Faustina.

“It is of no use to wait any more.  Either your father will consent or he will not.  I will ask him and know the worst.”

“And if it is the worst—­what then?” The young girl turned her eyes towards Anastase with a frightened look.

“Then we must manage without his consent.”

“How is that possible?”

“It must be possible,” replied Gouache.  “If you love me it shall be possible.  It is only a question of a little courage and good-will.  But, after all, your father may consent.  Why should he not?”