My _naïveté_ may seem astonishing. I was, indeed, _naïve_ at that time, and it would have been surprising had I not been. People of more penetration than I would have been blinded. Lorenzo himself was at that time. When he found us together at his return, and comprehended the result of our interview from the very first words he heard, he turned towards me with eyes lit up with tenderness and gratitude. His first, and probably his only, feeling at meeting again the woman to whom he thought he had been ungrateful and almost disloyal, had been a kind of humiliation. To get rid of this feeling, he had sought some means of repairing this wrong, and, thanks to my docility to him and my generosity towards her, he persuaded himself he had found a way. In the state of affairs at that moment I had the advantage. I gained that day a new, but, alas! the last, triumph over my rival! XX. Lorenzo accompanied the marchioness to her carriage, and then returned an instant to inform me she would dine with us that evening, and that he had invited Lando to join us. He embraced me affectionately before he went away, looking at me with an expression that caused me a momentary joy, but which was followed by a feeling of melancholy as profound as if his kiss had been an adieu. But though my apprehensions of the evening before were allayed, I could not get rid of a vague uneasiness impossible to overcome—perhaps the natural result of the hopes that, on the one hand, had been disappointed since the previous day, and, on the other, the fears that had been removed. But my mind was still greatly troubled, and though the atmosphere around me had apparently become calm and serene, I felt, so to speak, the earth tremble almost insensibly beneath my feet, and could hear the rumbling of thunder afar off. My interview with Donna Faustina lasted so long that I had not been alone half an hour before Mme. de Kergy and her daughter were announced. This call, which, under any circumstances, would have given me pleasure, was particularly salutary at this moment, for it diverted my mind and effected a complete, beneficial change of impressions. After the somewhat feverish excitement I had just undergone, it was of especial benefit to see and converse with these agreeable companions of the evening before. I breathed more freely, and forgot Donna Faustina while listening to their delightful conversation. My eyes responded to Diana’s smiling looks, and her mother inspired me with a mingled attraction and confidence that touched me and awakened in my soul the dearest, sweetest, and most poignant memories of the past. Mme. de Kergy perceived this, and likewise noticed, I think, the traces of recent agitation in my face. She rose, as if fearing it would be indiscreet to prolong her visit. “Oh! do not go yet,” I said, taking hold of her hand to detain her. “But you look fatigued or ill. I do not wish to abuse the permission you gave me.”