"Poor old man," commented Antonio. "He imagines that I am a prince--I with my small berth at the Treasury!--fit to marry and carry off a young lady who is _fine, fine, fine_!" "To be sure," he wrote in his letter of September 2nd, "30,000 _lire_ are not to be despised; but I must first see the lady." The next letter described the meeting with Regina on the banks of the Po, near her home. "She is not beautiful. She has a muzzle like a cat; but she is very attractive, cultured, particularly intelligent. The Master must have talked to her of me, for she got red and looked at me in a shy sort of way. She asked if I was really private secretary to a princess. Evidently she would think that much more interesting than to be merely a junior clerk in the Treasury office! "Yesterday I went to the Tagliamaris' villa. The mother is the most charming of women, a genuine great lady. She told me the whole story of her life, perhaps with intention, but in the most delicate way. She belongs herself to a distinguished family. Her husband was wealthy, but what she calls unlucky speculations, the floods of --80, and other misfortunes, completely ruined him----" "What are you about, Regina?" asked Antonio, appearing at the door. "Oh!" she cried, looking up, "I've discovered some most curious human documents!" And she held up the letters. He flushed, and sprang to put them back in their pigeon-holes, then changed his mind and began to read them himself. "Aren't you ashamed?" she said; "a '_signorina fine, fine, fine_!' '30,000 _lire_ not to be despised,' 'Private secretary to a princess more interesting in her eyes, etc., etc., etc.' You were horrid!" "Read here! Read here!" said Antonio. "See what I say afterwards!" But she got up and looked at herself in the glass. "I declare it's true! I am like a cat!" "Read here!" repeated Antonio, pursuing her, a letter in his hand. "We'll read it later. Now I'm going to write home," she said, reseating herself at the bureau. Antonio took all the letters and set himself to read them over, buried in a corner of the ottoman. Every now and then, while Regina wrote rapidly, he burst into exclamations and little laughs, then suddenly became serious, as if in the lively recollection of the last days passed at C----e he were living his happiness over again. Later the pair presented themselves at Arduina's Apartment, where they were to dine. The authoress lived on the top floor of the palace in a small suite of rooms furnished in rather strange taste and pervaded by what seemed to Regina affected disorder. Arduina came to meet her guests screaming with delight. She was dressed in a long white overall, her sleeves tucked up and displaying lean, yellow arms. "Come in!" she said, hiding her hands behind her back; "give me a kiss, Regina!" Regina kissed her without enthusiasm, and Antonio said-- "I've explained that to get time for writing you prepare dinner at 5 a.m. God only knows what sort of meal you'll give us!"