Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/104

108 upon to play a part so vile that I shudder to think of it! What! Must I then consent to share. . . Yet how can I hesitate, since Manon has so decreed, and since I must lose her unless I comply?"

"M. Lescaut," I exclaimed, closing my eyes as if to shut out these torturing reflections, "if it has been your intention to do me a service, I thank you. You might, indeed, have found a more honorable method; but it is a settled thing, as I understand it. Let us, then, dismiss all other considerations but those of how we may best profit by your exertions, and carry your project into effect."

Lescaut—whom my indignation, followed by such long-continued silence, had considerably embarrassed—was delighted to see me come to a decision so totally opposed to the one which he had doubtless dreaded that I would adopt. He was anything but courageous, as I had subsequently even better occasion to know.

"Yes, yes," he hastened to reply; "I have done you a very good turn, and you will yet find that it is more to our advantage than you are disposed to believe."

We then consulted as to how we should disarm the suspicions which Monsieur de G M might conceive as to the reality of our fraternal relationship when he found