The captain was a half-pay officer who
played an uncommonly good game at
billiards. He was understood to live chiefly
by his wits, but he had the entrée to several
distinguished families who clung—theoretically,
for a more practical clinging would
hav involved an amount of inconvenience
which it would have been mere Quixotism
to encounter—to the old régime; he was a
zealous Roman Catholic, and, it is scarcely
necessary to add, was descended from one
of the ancient kings of Ireland!

"Who lias red hair?" asked the captain, in
Italian flavoured with a rich Kerry brogue.

"We were talking about a man I know
here, un riccone, an immensely rich fellow,"
said Barletti.

"Indeed! Who is he?" said the captain,
affably. He had no constitutional prejudice
against rich fellows.

"Baron Gale."

"Baron what? I never heard the title."

"He is an English baron—Sir John
Gale—I knew him in Naples."

"O, a baronet! Per Bacco!" exclaimed
aptain, pronouncing the name of the
hen then deity precisely like the last
syllable of "tobacco," with a very sharp a.
"It isn't Tullis Gale, is it?"

"No, no; John: Sir John Gale."

"Aye, aye, that is the baptismal name.
But he took the name of Gale when he came
into a fortune, being richer than enough
already, that's always the way. He's a thin,
high-shouldered man, with sandy hair and
black eyes?"

"Già."

"And has a handsome wife?"

"Bellissima!"

"That's the man!" cried the captain,
rolling the end of his cigar between his lips
relishingly. "I knew him in Ireland in
the year 'forty-nine. My lady is a great
beauty—was, that is, for she must be quite
passée by this time—and married him for
his money."

"Passée!" echoed Barletti, on whom that
word alone, of all that the captain had
uttered, had made an impression.
"Diamine! What do you call 'passée'? She
is as fresh as a Hebe, and young enough to
be his daughter!"

"Pooh, pooh, my dear friend! There's
some mistake. Lady Tallis Gale must be
fifty if she's a day!"

The bystanders burst into a derisive laugh.
Barletti had allowed himself to boast a little
of his intimacy at Villa Chiari, and had
exalted "miladi's" beauty to the skies. It is
naturally agreeable to find that one's friend
has been exaggerating the charms of a
society from which one is oneself excluded.
Barletti had to undergo a great deal
banter: and many pleasantries were uttered
on the humorous topic of Lady Gale's
posed age and infirmities: which pleasantries
being (like some other things which, are
grateful to the truly genteel palate, as
caviare and old Stilton) of a somewhat
high flavour, we may be dispensed from
laying before the reader.

Barletti fumed and protested and gesticulated,
in vain. The joke at his expense was
too good to be lost.

"That's why she never showed, then, in
the Cascine or anywhere," said he of the
spindle legs, reflectively. That young nobleman
was not, strictly speaking, imaginative;
and had taken little part in the shower of
jests which had been flung at Barletti. "I
thought it was queer, if she was so handsome
as all that!"

The conception of a strikingly handsome
young woman who did not want to show
herself in the Cascine, was entirely beyond
this young gentleman's powers of mind.
He was as incredulous as an African to
whom one should describe a snow-storm.

That evening Barletti, seated at the
picquet-table opposite to Sir John Gale, caused
the latter to dash his cards down with an
oath, by asking him a simple question:
"Have you been married twice, caro Gale?"

"What the devil's that to you, sir?"
demanded the baronet when he had
recovered breath enough to speak.

Barletti drew himself up a little. "Pardon,
monsieur le baron," said he, " but I do
not quite understand that mode of address."

At another moment he might have passed
over the brutal rudeness of his host's words,
but his amour propre was still smarting
from the jeering he had received in the
morning. He was therefore ready to resent
a small offence from one from whom he had
endured greater offences with equanimity.
That was not just. But man often deals as
blindly with his fellows as fortune deals
with him: and it is the first comer who
receives the good or evil he may chance to
hold in his hand, quite irrespective of the
claims of abstract justice.

Sir John was not in a mood to take any
notice of Barletti'e sudden access of dignity.

"What put that into your head, pray?"
asked Sir John, fiercely.

"No matter, monsieur le baron; if I
could have conjectured that the topic was a
painful one, I should not have adverted to it.
Let us say no more."

"Trash, sir! I insist upon knowing
what you mean."