Graham, thus ordered, hastened to offer his arm to the she-mountebank. Somehow she had acquired dignity in his eyes, and he did not feel the least ashamed of being in contact with the scarlet jacket. The Signora grappled to him with a confiding familiarity. “I am afraid,” she said in Italian, as they passed along the spacious hall to the porte cochere,--“I am afraid that I did not make a good effect to-night. I was nervous; did not you perceive it?” “No, indeed; you enchanted us all;” replied the dissimulator. “How amiable you are to say so! You must think that I sought for a compliment. So I did; you gave me more than I deserved. Wine is the milk of old men, and praise of old women; but an old man may be killed by too much wine, and an old woman lives all the longer for too much praise. Buona notte.” Here she sprang, lithesomely enough, into the carriage, and Isaura followed, escorted by M. Savarin. As the two men returned towards the shawl-room, the Frenchman said, “Madame Savarin and I complain that you have not let us see so much of you as we ought. No doubt you are greatly sought after; but are you free to take your soup with us the day after to-morrow? You will meet the Count von Rudesheim, and a few others more lively if less wise.” “The day after to-morrow I will mark with a white stone. To dine with M. Savarin is an event to a man who covets distinction.” “Such compliments reconcile an author to his trade. You deserve the best return I can make you. You will meet la belle Isaura. I have just engaged her and her chaperon. She is a girl of true genius; and genius is like those objects of virtu which belong to a former age, and become every day more scarce and more precious.” Here they encountered Colonel Morley and his wife hurrying to their carriage. The American stopped Vane, and whispered, “I am glad, sir, to hear from my wife that you dine with us to-morrow. Sir, you will meet Mademoiselle Cicogna, and I am not without a kinkle [notion] that you will be enthused.” “This seems like a fatality,” soliloquized Vane as he walked through the deserted streets towards his lodging. “I strove to banish that haunting face from my mind. I had half forgotten it, and now--” Here his murmur sank into silence. He was deliberating in very conflicted thought whether or not he should write to refuse the two invitations he had accepted. “Pooh!” he said at last, as he reached the door of his lodging, “is my reason so weak that it should be influenced by a mere superstition? Surely I know myself too well, and have tried myself too long, to fear that I should be untrue to the duty and ends of my life, even if I found my heart in danger of suffering.”