"I will be delighted, Beltrami. Is the Marchesa in Paris?"
"Eh! no, not this time. I am here en garçon for a few days. Madame is in Florence, where you must come and visit us. We are wonderfully happy. Dame! who wouldn't be with health, wealth, and an angel of a wife? Ecco!"
"You inherited the wealth of Madame Morone?"
"Ma foi! yes. It was the only good turn she ever did me."
"Oh!" I cried, with a revulsion of feeling, "you are becoming cynical again."
"I always become cynical when I think of that demon."
"Beltrami," I said after a pause, as we left the Opera House, "there is a question I have often wished to ask you."
I felt the Marchese's arm tremble a little in mine, but he laughed in a nonchalant manner.
"Eh! ask what you will, mon ami."
"Did you put your hand through the curtains and change the position of those glasses?"