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I could not help muttering the words
perfidious and unfaithful, though they were profusely mixed with
sighs.

"At first she laughed at me for my simplicity; but when she
found that I continued to look at her with an unchanging
expression of melancholy, and that I could not bring myself to
enter with alacrity into a scene so repugnant to all my feelings,
she went alone into her boudoir. I very soon followed her, and
then I found her in a flood of tears. I asked the cause of her
sorrow. `You can easily understand it,' said she; `how can you
wish me to live, if my presence can no longer have any other
effect than to give you an air of sadness and chagrin? Not one
kiss have you given me during the long hour you have been in the
house, while you have received my caresses with the dignified
indifference of a Grand Turk, receiving the forced homage of the
Sultanas of his harem.'

"`Hearken to me, Manon,' said I, embracing her; `I cannot
conceal from you that my heart is bitterly afflicted. I do not
now allude to the uneasiness your sudden flight caused me, nor to
the unkindness of quitting me without a word of consolation,
after having passed the night away from me. The pleasure of
seeing you again would more than compensate for all; but do you
imagine that I can reflect without sighs and tears upon the
degrading and unhappy life which you now wish me to lead in this
house? Say nothing of my birth, or of my feelings of honour;
love like mine derives no aid from arguments of that feeble
nature; but do you imagine that I can without emotion see my love
so badly recompensed, or rather so cruelly treated, by an
ungrateful and unfeeling mistress?'

"She interrupted me. `Stop, chevalier,' said she, `it is useless
to torture me with reproaches, which, coming from you, always
pierce my heart. I see what annoys you. I had hoped that you
would have agreed to the project which I had devised for mending
our shattered fortunes, and it was from a feeling of delicacy to
you that I began the execution of it without your assistance; but
I give it up since it does not meet your approbation.' She added
that she would now merely request a little patient forbearance
during the remainder of the day; that she had already received
five hundred crowns from the old gentleman, and that he had
promised to bring her that evening a magnificent pearl necklace
with other jewels, and, in advance, half of the yearly pension he
had engaged to allow her. `Leave me only time enough,' said she
to me, to get possession of these presents; I promise you that he
will have little to boast of from his connection with me, for in
the country I repulsed all his advances, putting him off till our
return to town. It is true that he has kissed my hand a thousand
times over, and it is but just that he should pay for even this
amusement: I am sure that, considering his riches as well as his
age, five or six thousand francs is not an unreasonable price!'

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