The press of company prevented Corinne's reply: they were going to supper; and each _cavaliér servénte_ hastened to seat himself beside his lady. A fair stranger arrived and found no room; yet not a man, save Oswald and d'Erfeuil, rose to offer her his place. Not that the Romans were either rude or selfish; but they believed that their honor depended on their never quitting their post of duty. Some, unable to gain seats, leaned behind their mistresses' chairs, ready to obey the slightest sign. The females spoke but to their lovers: strangers wandered in vain around a circle where no one had a word to spare them; for Italian women are ignorant of that coquetry which renders a love affair nothing more than the triumph of self-conceit; they wish to please no eyes save those that are dear to them. The mind is never misled before the heart. The most abrupt commencements are often followed by sincere devotion, and even by lasting constancy. Infidelity is more censured in man than in woman. Three or four men, beneath different titles, may follow the same beauty, who takes them with her everywhere, sometimes without troubling herself to name them to the master of the house which receives the party. One is the favorite; another aspires to be so; a third calls himself the sufferer (_il patíto_); though disdained, he is permitted to be of use; all the rivals live peaceably together. It is only among the common people that you still hear of the stiletto; but the whole country presents a wild mixture of simpleness and of vice, dissimulation and truth, good-nature and revenge, strength and weakness; justifying the remark, that the best of these qualities may be found among those who will do nothing for vanity; the worst among such as will do anything for interest; whether the interest of love, of avarice, or ambition. Distinctions of rank are generally disregarded in Italy. It is not from stoicism, but from heedless familiarity, that men are here insensible to aristocratic prejudices; constituting themselves judges of no one, they admit everybody. After supper they sat down to play; some of the women at hazard, others chose silent whist; and not a word was now uttered in the apartment, so noisy just before. The people of the south often run thus quickly from the extreme of agitation to that of repose; it is one of the peculiarities of their character, that indolence is succeeded by activity: indeed, in all respects they are the last men on whose merits or defects we ought to decide at first sight; so contrasted are the qualities they unite; the creatures all prudence to-day may be all audacity to-morrow. They are often apathetic, from just having made, or preparing to make, some great exertion. In fact, they waste not one energy of their minds on society, but hoard them till called forth by strong events. At this assembly many persons lost enormous sums, without the slightest change of countenance; yet the same beings