Part 23

OR ROMAN REVENGE 227

“What you will. Only file through the bars of my cage and lend me your dagger. We have but little time, quick, quick! Oh, if my teeth were but files!--I have tried to eat through this iron.”

“Eccellenza,” said Rinaldo, “I have already filed through one bar.”

“You are a god!”

“Your wife was at the fete given by the Princess Villaviciosa. She brought home her little Frenchman; she is drunk with love.--You have plenty of time.”

“Have you done?”

“Yes.”

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“Your dagger?” said the Duke eagerly to the brigand.

“Here it is.”

“Good. I hear the clatter of the spring.”

“Do not forget me!” cried the robber, who knew what gratitude was.

“No more than my father,” cried the Duke.

“Good-bye!” said Rinaldo. “Lord! How he flies up!” he added to him- self as the Duke disappeared.--“No more than his father! If that is all he means to do for me.--And I

OR ROMAN REVENGE 229

had sworn a vow never to injure a woman!”

But let us leave the robber for a moment to his meditations and go up, like the Duke, to the rooms in the palace.

“Another tailpiece, a Cupid on a snail! And page 230 is blank,” said the journalist. “Then there are two more blank pages before we come to the word it is such a joy to write when one is unhappily so happy as to be a novelist--Conclusion!

CONCLUSION

Never had the Duchess been more lovely; she came from her bath clothed like a goddess, and on seeing

234 OLYMPIA

Adolphe voluptuously reclining on piles of cushions--

“You are beautiful,” said she.

“And so are you, Olympia!”

“And you still love me?”

“More and more,” said he.

“Ah, none but a Frenchman knows how to love!” cried the Duchess. “Do you love me well to- night?”

“Yes.”