“But I must arrange a meeting. I’ll kill two birds with one stone. She will know the words of the night. From her I can obtain them. She will come to me, I know,” says Guy very confidently. “You can gain admission to her as the under-secretary of Alva. Do so to-day. Give her this ring;” he takes the beautiful ruby from his finger and puts it into the painter’s hand. “Mon Dieu! You have exchanged rings—did kisses go with them?” laughs Oliver; and as a flaming blush appears upon Guy’s face, he mutters: “Parbleu! I believe they have. Talk about Italian passion! It is as ice to you wonderful English.” Getting no answer from Chester he continues: “I can arrange an interview to-day, but it cannot be here. The duenna would stand in the path of any tête-à-tête between you. The only way I can think of private word for you with your love, you fortunate young man—you unfortunate young man—is at the house of the man I hope one day to call ‘papa.’” “The burgomaster, Niklaas Bodé Volcker?” exclaims Guy. “Yes. On the plea of rare bargains in silks that have been slightly damaged by the flood Doña Hermoine can bring her duenna into the town. At the merchant’s you can speak privately with Doña de Alva.” “But the duenna—the infernal duenna?” growls Chester. “The duenna will be made blind and harmless in the next room inspecting bargains. If we arrange to have Bodé Volcker’s stock low enough, the Countess de Pariza is good for an hour of rapture and bargains. Besides, they will probably be coming in to-day to learn the talk of the town, about the great drinking bout between”—here the painter flushes with indignation—“between the man who disgraces his genius and his art, by intemperance, and the Six Drunkards of Brussels. You have seen it placarded on the walls of the inns and wine houses, bearing the name of the greatest artist the Netherlands has yet produced, the Raphael of the North, the man whose disciple I was, the man whose altar piece in the great Church of Our Dear Lady would have made him renowned forever had it not been burnt by the Iconoclasts four years ago, when they threw down all the images of the church, and destroyed innumerable masterpieces of art, in blind rage at the Inquisition. I and another old pupil of Floris’s saved that night one picture of his, a smaller one, ‘The Fall of the Angels;’ it is not his best work; in fact, it is very much beneath his genius, but it is the one thing of his that will go down to posterity, for now he has become a sot and a drunkard,” and Oliver sighs. “Very well,” cries Guy, breaking in upon the artist’s indignant rhapsody, during which he has remembered he has not eaten since he has risen. “Now having finished our business, perhaps when Achille returns with the provisions you will give me a little breakfast, perchance a little pigeon pie, eh?” and he playfully pokes the painter in the ribs, for Antony’s remarks about Hermoine de Alva have made this audacious young man very jovially happy.