“All three of us together. Pack your box, pay your bill, and be ready while I wait. At the worst, ’tis something gained to shift your quarters and cover your trail.”
I demurred only at the bill; for, indeed, we needed every penny of our ready money. But he settled the matter by paying it himself.
“I have become of a saving disposition,” he said; “and whatever trifle there be, you are its heir. This is only drawing on your reversion”—and, indeed, he valued money at nothing at all. If he could have picked a living from the earth, he would never have been to the trouble of putting a penny in his pocket.
In a little, all being prepared, we took a coach and drove to the Ambassador’s hotel. My lady was fortunately at her toilette, and sent down a surprised message, that, whatever the deuce I wanted, I was to be shown up. I found her, tumbled a little abroad, in the hands of her perruquier, whom she dismissed while she talked to me.
“Why, child,” she said, “what a face! ’Tis as white, I vow, as the wings of your butterfly. Out with your trouble now.”
I threw myself at her feet. I made a clean breast of my story—of the inhuman cruelty of which I was the destined victim; and I ended by imploring her to let me and my friends enjoy the bounty of her protection. She fired magnificently, as I had hoped she would, over the recital. She embraced my cause impulsively and without a thought for possible consequences to herself.
“The infamous old fox!” she cried of my lord; “I was flattered by his attentions, hang him! until I found they was of the worst consequence to me as a lady of position. To think of the old beast wanting to murder you because of a lampoon—pasquinades we call ’em in Italy! La, child! if I answered so to every dig that’s made at me, I’d better turn public executioner at once. Let’s keep our own characters clean against the light being turned on ’em, say I; and, if we don’t, there’s only ourselves to thank. It’s too late to talk of bein’ a lady when the crowner comes to sit on our dirty stockin’s.”
She made me repeat my little song to her, and cried over it again.
“Trot up your friends,” she said, wiping her eyes. “There’s room for you all here till we start for France—or Naples, if you will. Let me see the old devil dare to follow you into this sancshery! We’ll be even with him, gnashin’ his yellow teeth left behind. Go and fetch ’em. I want to see what they’re like.”
And she gave me a tempest of a kiss, and pushed me out at the door.