“Not to me though, not to me. It is the very difficulty, the tension, so to say, that makes it enticing. I have I cannot tell you what enjoyment in a position where, by the slightest movement to this side or that, you lose your balance and fall. I like—I delight in the narrow path with the precipice at each hand, where a false step is destruction. The wish to live is never so strong as when life is in danger.”
“You are a heart and soul gambler.”
“Confess, however, I am beau joueur. I know how to lose.” And muttering something over the lateness of the hour, he snatched up his hat and hurried away.
As Pracontal was hurrying to the place of meeting with all the speed of his horse, a servant met him with a note from Lady Augusta. “She did not feel well enough,” she said, “for a ride; she had a headache, and begged he would come and pay her a visit, and dine too, if he was not afraid of a dinner en tête à tête.”
Overjoyed with the familiar tone of this note, he hurried back to Rome, and soon found himself in the little drawing' room which looked out upon the Borghese garden, and where a servant told him her Ladyship would soon appear.
“This is very kind of you and very nice,” said she, entering and giving him her hand in a languid sort of manner, “to come here and give up the delights of the picnic, with its pretty women and champagne, and patés-aux-truffes. No; you are to sit yonder. I don't know you long enough to advance you to the privilege of that low chair next my sofa.”
“I am your slave, even to martyrdom,” said he, bowing, and sitting down where she had bid him.
“You are aware, I hope,” said she, in the same wearied tone, “that it is very wrong of us to become acquainted. That, connected as I am with the Bramleighs, I ought not to have permitted you to be presented to me. My sister is shocked at the impropriety, and as for Lord and Lady Culduff, rather than meet you at dinner on Friday they have left Rome.”
“Left Rome?”
“Yes, gone to Naples. To be sure, he ought to have been there a month ago; he was accredited to that Court, and he had nothing to do here, which was, however to him an excellent reason for being here. Why do you make me talk so much? It sets my head splitting, and I sent for you to listen to you, and not to have any worry of talking myself—there, begin.”