“Perhaps, yes, and perhaps--But is it going to rain? How provoking! and I have ordered my horse. Well, Signor Carlos, I leave you to your delightful newspaper, and all the magnificent descriptions of battles and sieges and skirmishes of which you seem doomed to pine without ceasing. There, don’t kiss my hand twice; that’s not right.” “Well, let me begin again--” “I shall not breakfast with you any more. But tell me, am I to order a costume for you in Lisbon; or will you arrange all that yourself? You must come to the _fête_, you know.” “If you would be so very kind.” “I will, then, be so very kind; and once more, _adios_.” So saying, and with a slight motion of her hand, she smiled a good-by, and left me. “What a lovely girl!” thought I, as I rose and walked to the window, muttering to myself Othello’s line, and-- “When I love thee not, chaos is come again.” In fact, it was the perfect expression of my feeling; the only solution to all the difficulties surrounding me, being to fall desperately, irretrievably in love with the fair senhora, which, all things considered, was not a very desperate resource for a gentleman in trouble. As I thought over the hopelessness of one attachment, I turned calmly to consider all the favorable points of the other. She was truly beautiful, attractive in every sense; her manner most fascinating, and her disposition, so far as I could pronounce, perfectly amiable. I felt already something more than interest about her; how very easy would be the transition to a stronger feeling! There was an _éclat_, too, about being her accepted lover that had its charm. She was the belle _par excellence_ of Lisbon; and then a sense of pique crossed my mind as I reflected what would Lucy say of him whom she had slighted and insulted, when he became the husband of the beautiful millionnaire Senhora Inez? As my meditations had reached thus far, the door opened stealthily, and Catherine appeared, her finger upon her lips, and her gesture indicating caution. She carried on her arm a mass of drapery covered by a large mantle, which throwing off as she entered, she displayed before me a rich blue domino with silver embroidery. It was large and loose in its folds, so as thoroughly to conceal the figure of any wearer. This she held up before me for an instant without speaking; when at length, seeing my curiosity fully excited, she said,-- “This is the senhora’s domino. I should be ruined if she knew I showed it; but I promised--that is, I told--” “Yes, yes, I understand,” relieving her embarrassment about the source of her civilities; “go on.” “Well, there are several others like it, but with this small difference, instead of a carnation, which all the others have embroidered upon the cuff, I have made it a rose,--you perceive? La Senhora knows nothing of this,--none save yourself knows it. I’m sure I may trust you with the secret.”