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"I will come for you towards the close, and we will sup together as before." I had no need to order my horses to be put in, as there was always a carriage ready for me in the courtyard. When I got to the theatre the opera had begun. I presented myself to Leonilda, who received me with the pleasant words, "Caro Don Giacomo, I am so pleased to see you again."
"She is, though her husband cannot be quite so ardent as she would like at her age." "He doesn't seem to me to be a very jealous man." "He is entirely free from jealousy, and if Leonilda would take a lover I am sure he would be his best friend. And I feel certain he would be only too glad to find the beautiful soil which he cannot fertile himself fertilized by another."
The pictures with which the closet where we breakfasted was adorned were admirable more from the colouring and the design than from the amorous combats they represented. "They don't make any impression on me," said the duke, and he shewed us that it was so. Leonilda looked away, and I felt shocked, but concealed my feelings.
I had won more than fifteen thousand ducats, and this sum added to what I had before and Leonilda's dowry should have sufficed for an honest livelihood. Next day, as I was at supper with the duke and Leonilda, she said, "What will my mother say to-morrow evening, when she sees you?" "She will say that you are silly to marry a stranger whom you have only known for a week.
"I will mortgage them," said he, "on a house which is worth double." Then turning to Leonilda, who was shedding happy tears, he said, "I am going to send for your mother, who will be delighted to sign the settlement, and to make the acquaintance of your future husband." The mother lived at the Marquis Galiani's, a day's journey from Naples.
"Dear Leonilda," I said, "the love I feel for you will suffer no delay and no rivals, not even the slightest inconstancy. I have told the duke that I am ready to marry you, and that I will give you a dower of five thousand ducats." "What did he say?" "That I must ask you, and that he would offer no opposition." "Then we should leave Naples together."
I had won more than fifteen thousand ducats, and this sum added to what I had before and Leonilda's dowry should have sufficed for an honest livelihood. Next day, as I was at supper with the duke and Leonilda, she said, "What will my mother say to-morrow evening, when she sees you?" "She will say that you are silly to marry a stranger whom you have only known for a week.
"Leonilda," began the duke, "has a mother, who lives at a short distance from here, on an income of six hundred ducats, which I have given her for life, in return for an estate belonging to her husband; but Leonilda does not depend on her.
The stupefied astonishment of Leonilda and the duke cannot be described. They could see that Donna Lucrezia and I knew each other, but they could not get any farther.
You would have done better not to play, for I should have loved you all the same, and you would have been two thousand ducats better off." "And I two thousand ducats worse off," said the duke, laughing. "Never mind, dear Leonilda, I shall win this evening if you grant me some favour to-day. If you do not do so, I shall lose heart, and you will mourn at my grave before long."
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