“Look here,” he said to Laura.
“What is it?”
“You have got to teach me bridge.”
“I don’t know how to play, because I have no head for such things and I forget what cards have been played; but they gave me a little book on the game. I will lend it to you, if you like.”
“Yes, give me it.”
Cæsar read the book, learned the intricacies of the game, and the next few evenings he acquitted himself so well that the Countess of San Martino marched off to her room with burning cheeks and almost in tears.
“What a cad you are!” Laura said to him at lunch some days later, laughing. “You are fleecing those women.”
“It’s their own fault. Why did they take advantage of my innocence?”
“They have decided to go and play in Carminatti’s room without telling you.”
“I’m glad of it.”