Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 5.djvu/103

Rh become a Monsignor. I hope you will like him, and that you will make friends with each other as you ought to. . . . " She broke off precipitately — " For you are nearly the same age, and he is a nice steady boy like yourself." She sent immediately for Don Ottavio, and I was presented to a tall, pale young man, whose downcast, melancholy eyes seemed already conscious of his hypocrisy.

Without giving him time to speak, the Marquise offered me in his name the most ready services. He assented by bowing low at all his mother's suggestions, and it was arranged that he should take me to see the sights of the town on the following day and bring me back to dinner en famille at the Aldobrandi palace.

I had hardly gone twenty steps down the road when an imperious voice exclaimed behind me — "Where are you going alone at this hour, Don Ottavio?"

I turned round and saw a fat priest, who looked me up and down from head to foot with eyes wide open.

"I am not Don Ottavio," I said. The priest bowed down to the ground, profuse in apologies, and a moment after I saw