He looked at me oddly, fixedly, for a long time. Then he said, "It is true that you are an Englishman. I had forgotten it." Suddenly he threw up his hands. "What a nation! What a lover!" His hand came down and rested upon my shoulders. "My friend," he said, "I am not so young as I was, but I do believe that I can teach you something." With that he left me. Upon returning to my house, sadly out of countenance by the coldness of Aurelia, I was met by Virginia, who reminded me that Scipione had obtained leave of absence for the night in order to visit his wife. She seemed excited and unlike herself, very careful to lock and bolt the front door, and was continually at the window, looking over the Piazza. Occupied as I was with my own troubles, I took no notice of her, and she, with the intelligence peculiar to her, saw how the land lay. She was not accustomed to pick her words with me--no Tuscan servants are-- and after a time of silence on my part and pretended business about the room on hers, she asked leave to speak to me, and without getting it, said, "Excuse me, Don Francis, for the liberty I take, but I see you very miserable, and guess the reason. You have had words with your mistress--and no wonder. Let me tell you that you have not the rudiments of love in you." "Enough of that, Virginia," I said; but she would not oblige me. "Let me tell your honour," said she, "that your sex has had the monopoly of mine since this world was first put in order. If you want your Aurelia, as I told you before, you must take her. Your proposals towards her are very Christian, but I have noticed that it is not the Christians who have the prettiest women at their disposition, but the Turks, of whom there are more in the world than you think for. Your doctor, for example, was a Turk of the Turks; and what did your Aurelia do but grovel for his rod until you came along, and she said, 'Hey, here is one who is Turchissimo, the grandest of grand Turks, with a longer and sharper rod'? You had a great chance then, Don Francis--what under Heaven possessed you to break the rod in her presence, or rather to put it into her hands, saying, 'Behold, madam, the rod. It is yours, not mine; use it. I kneel to receive it'? Why, Lord of Mercies, is this madness? Let me remind you of what I told you at Prato not so long ago, that to pray at a lady's feet when you ought to have her in your arms is to prepare misery for the pair of you. The whole trouble about that precious fault of yours was--not that you committed it, Dio mio, but that you did not commit it again. There, sir, that is my opinion--make what you will of it."