"Did Frank tell you I was next of kin?" "I rather think so; but I am sure _you_ did." "I--when?" "When you told me how important it was to you that Frank should marry Madame di Negra. _Peste! mon cher_, do you think I'm a blockhead?" "Well, Baron, Frank is of age, and can marry to please himself. You implied to me that you could help him in this." "I will try. See that he call at Madame di Negra's to-morrow, at two precisely." "I would rather keep clear of all apparent interference in this matter. Will you not arrange that he call on her?" "I will. Any more wine? No;--then let us go to the Count's." CHAPTER XXIV. The next morning Frank Hazeldean was sitting over his solitary breakfast-table. It was long past noon. The young man had risen early, it is true, to attend his military duties, but he had contracted the habit of breakfasting late. One's appetite does not come early when one lives in London, and never goes to bed before daybreak. There was nothing very luxurious or effeminate about Frank's rooms, though they were in a very dear street, and he paid a monstrous high price for them. Still, to a practised eye, they betrayed an inmate who can get through his money, and make very little show for it. The walls were covered with coloured prints of racers and steeple-chases, interspersed with the portraits of opera-dancers--all smirk and caper. Then there was a semicircular recess, covered with red cloth, and fitted up for smoking, as you might perceive by sundry stands full of Turkish pipes in cherry-stick and jessamine, with amber mouthpieces; while a great serpent hookah, from which Frank could no more have smoked than he could have smoked out of the head of a boa constrictor, coiled itself up on the floor; over the chimney-piece was a collection of Moorish arms. What use on earth, ataghan and scimitar, and damasquined pistols, that would not carry straight three yards, could be to an officer in his Majesty's Guards, is more than I can conjecture, or even Frank satisfactorily explain. I have strong suspicions that this valuable arsenal passed to Frank in part-payment of a bill to be discounted. At all events, if so, it was an improvement on the bear that he had sold to the hairdresser. No books were to be seen anywhere, except a Court Guide, a Racing Calendar, an Army List, the Sporting Magazine complete, (whole bound in scarlet morocco, at about a guinea per volume,) and a small book, as small as an Elzevir, on the chimney-piece, by the side of a cigar-case. That small book had cost Frank more than all the rest put together; it was his Own Book, his book _par excellence_; book made up by himself--his BETTING BOOK! On a centre table were deposited Frank's well-brushed hat--a satin-wood box, containing kid-gloves, of various delicate tints, from primrose to lilac--a tray full of cards and three-cornered notes--an opera-glass, and an ivory subscription ticket to his opera stall.