Ah! signorina, you were a great artist.
At "Mon Repos" I soon became an habitual, and, I was fain to think, a welcome, guest.

Mrs.Carrington, who entertained a deep distrust of the manners and excesses of Aureataland, was good enough to consider me eminently respectable, while the signorina was graciousness itself.
I was even admitted to the select circle at the dinner party which, as a rule, preceded her Wednesday evening reception, and I was a constant figure round the little roulette board, which, of all forms of gaming, was our hostess' favorite delectation.

The colonel was, not to my pleasure, an equally invariable guest, and the President himself would often honor the party with his presence, an honor we found rather expensive, for his luck at all games of skill or chance was extraordinary.
"I have always trusted Fortune," he would say, "and to me she is not fickle." "Who would be fickle if your Excellency were pleased to trust her ?" the signorina would respond, with a glance of almost fond admiration.
This sort of thing did not please McGregor.

He made no concealment of the fact that he claimed the foremost place among the signorina's admirers, utterly declining to make way even for the President.

The latter took his boorishness very quietly; and I could not avoid the conclusion that the President held, or thought he held, the trumps.
I was, naturally, intensely jealous of both these great men, and, although I had no cause to complain of my treatment, I could not stifle some resentment at the idea that I was, after all, an outsider and not allowed a part in the real drama that was going on.