Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/20

24 gentleman, so that he may let me know of it if you do; and I have influence enough to see that you are punished, depend upon it."

The affair thus cost me six louis d'or.

The young stranger expressed such deep gratitude and thanked me so gracefully that I was confirmed in my impression that he was of noble birth, and fully deserving of the liberality I had shown him. I spoke a few words to his mistress before I left the room. She answered me so sweetly and with such charming modesty of manner that, as I went out, I fell to musing for a long while over the incomprehensibility of the female character.

Returning, as I did, to my life of solitude, I was left in ignorance of the sequel of this adventure. The lapse of two years had driven the matter completely out of my mind, when chance again afforded me an opportunity of learning the full particulars of the affair.

I was returning from London, with my pupil, the Marquis of, and had just arrived at Calais. We put up, if I remember rightly, at the Golden Lion, where, for some reason, we were obliged to spend the whole of that day and the following night. As I was taking a walk through the streets in the afternoon, I caught sight of the same