As Volheno sent me a line at the last moment saying he was detained, I had to go alone and I was very glad. Not being quite certain how Miralda would receive me, I did not wish to have any lookers-on when me met. Moreover, I certainly did not want to fool away the evening, a good deal of which I hoped to spend with her, in talking a lot of rot about these concessions which I had only used as a stalking-horse for my visit to Lisbon. But I soon found that in choosing them, I had invested myself with a most inconvenient amount of importance. The Marquis received me with as much cordiality as if I were an old friend and benefactor of his family. He grasped my hand warmly, expressed his delight at making my acquaintance, could not find words to describe his admiration of England and the English, and then started upon the concessions. I thought he would never stop, but he came to the point. Volheno had taken as gospel all the rubbish I had talked about the prospects of wealth offered by the concessions, and had passed it on to the marquis through a magnifying glass until the latter, being a comparatively poor man, was under the impression that I could make his fortune. He was more than willing to be “interested” in the scheme; and took great pains to convince me that without his influence I could not succeed. And that influence was mine for a consideration. In the desire to get free from his button-holing I gave him promises lavish enough to send him off to his other guests with eyes positively glittering with greed. Unfortunately for me, however, he began to use his influence at once, and while I was hanging about near the entrance, waiting to catch Miralda the moment she arrived, he kept bringing up a number of his friends--mostly titled and all tiresome bores--whom he was also “interesting” in the scheme. They all said the same thing. Theirs was the only influence which could secure the concessions for me, and they all made it plain about the consideration. I began at length to listen for the phrase and occasionally to anticipate it; and thus in half an hour or so I had promised enough backsheesh to have crippled the scheme ten times over. One of these old fellows--a marquis or visconte or something of the sort, the biggest bore of the lot anyway--was in possession of me in a corner when Miralda arrived, and for the life of me I couldn’t shake him off. I was worrying how to get away when the marquis came sailing up with another of them in tow, a tall, stiff, hawk-faced, avaricious-looking old man, with a pompous air, and more orders on his breast than I could count. I groaned and wished the concessions at the bottom of the Tagus, but the next moment had to shut down a smile. It was the Visconte de Linto, Miralda’s stepfather.