“That is my business, not yours,” said Philip.

“I had your orders to join you at half-past eleven.  Perhaps you have other engagements?”

“Perhaps.”

“A petit souper with the Countess Born?  She is not present here; at least among all the masks I can’t trace her out.  I should know her among a thousand by that graceful walk and her peculiar way of carrying her little head—­eh, Prince?”

“Well, but if it were so, there would be no necessity for making you my confidant, would there?”

“I will take the hint, and be silent.  But won’t you at any rate send to the Signora Rollina to let her know you are not coming?”

“If I have sighed for her for two months, she had better sigh a month or two for me.  I sha’n’t go near her.”

“So that beautiful necklace which you sent her for a New Year’s present was all for nothing?”

“As far as I am concerned.”

“Will you break with her entirely?”

“There is nothing between us to break, that I know of.”

“Well, then, since you speak so plainly, I may tell you something which you perhaps know already.  Your love for the Signora has hitherto kept me silent; but now that you have altered your mind about her, I can no longer keep the secret from you.  You are deceived.”

“By whom?”

“By the artful singer.  She would divide her favors between your Royal Highness and a Jew.”

“A Jew?”

“Yes! with the son of Abraham Levi.”

“Is that rascal everywhere?”

“So your Highness did not know it? but I am telling you the exact truth; if it were not for your Royal Highness, she would be his mistress.  I am only sorry you gave her that watch.”

“I don’t regret it at all.”

“The jade deserves to be whipped.”

“Few people meet their deserts,” answered Philip.

“Too true, too true, your Royal Highness.  For instance, I have discovered a girl—­O Prince, there is not such another in this city or in the whole world!  Few have seen this angel.—­Pooh!  Rollina is nothing to her.  Listen—­a girl tall and slender as a palm tree—­with a complexion like the red glow of evening upon snow—­eyes like sunbeams—­rich golden tresses,—­in short, the most beautiful creature I ever beheld—­a Venus—­a goddess in rustic attire.  Your Highness, we must give her chase.”

“A peasant girl?”

“A mere rustic; but then you must see her yourself, and you will love her.  But my descriptions are nothing.  Imagine the embodiment of all that you can conceive most charming—­add to that, artlessness, grace, and innocence.  But the difficulty is to catch sight of her.  She seldom leaves her mother.  I know her seat in church, and have watched her for many Sundays past, as she walked with her mother to the Elm-Gate.  I have ascertained that a handsome young fellow, a gardener, is making court to her.  He can’t marry her, for he is a poor devil, and she has nothing.  The mother is the widow of a poor weaver.”