Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/175

Rh still recur with pleasure to a recollection which brings her once more before me with all her tenderness and all the charming sprightliness of her disposition.

Our valet (the only servant we had) took me aside one day and told me, with an air of great embarrassment, that he had an important secret to impart to me. I encouraged him to speak out freely. After some beating about the bush, he gave me to understand that there was a certain foreigner of rank who seemed to have become deeply enamoured of Miss Manon.

I felt the blood go boiling through every vein in my body.

"Does she return his passion?" I asked sharply, forgetting all considerations of prudence in my anxiety to learn the truth at once.

My sudden display of temper disconcerted the man; he replied uneasily that he had not carried his observations far enough to be able to answer that question. He had noticed, however, for some days past, that this foreigner made a habit of coming regularly to the Bois de Boulogne, where, alighting from his carriage, he would roam about alone among the by-paths, apparently watching for an opportunity of catching a glimpse of Miss Manon or of