Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/195

Rh Yet a furnished house, with a coach and three lackeys, is an arrow feathered with great seductions, and Cupid has few as strong in all his quiver."

She protested that I had possession of her heart forever, and that no image but my own should ever be graven upon it.

"The promises he made me," she said, "are goads to vengeance, rather than shafts of love."

I asked her whether she intended to accept the house and coach. She replied that his money was all that she had designs upon. The difficulty was to get possession of the one without the others. We decided to await the full disclosure of G M's plans, which he was to make in a letter he had promised to write her. It was duly delivered to her the next day by a footman out of livery, who managed very adroitly to procure an opportunity of speaking to her unobserved. Telling him to wait for an answer, she brought the letter to me at once, and we opened it together.

In addition to the usual tender commonplaces, it contained my rival's promises set forth in full detail. He lavished his wealth with no niggard hand, pledging himself to count down to her ten thousand francs upon her taking possession of the house, and to make up that sum as fast as