Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/219

Rh alarmed when I failed to keep my appointment with you. It was with this object in view that I suggested to him that we should send you your new mistress this very evening, as that would furnish me with a pretext for writing to you. I was compelled to resort to this subterfuge because I saw no hope of his leaving me at liberty for a single moment. Laughing at my proposal, he called his servant, and asked him whether he could find his former mistress immediately, and then sent him off to look for her in every direction. G M was under the impression that she would have to go to Chaillot to see you; but I told him that, on leaving you, I had promised to rejoin you at the Comédie or, in case anything should prevent my going there, that you were to wait for me in a coach, at the end of the Rue Saint-André. It would be better, therefore, I said, to send your new mistress to you there, if only to prevent your dancing attendance there all night long.

"I told him, also, that it would be as well to write you a few words explaining this exchange, as you would otherwise be at a loss to understand it. He consented to this, but I was obliged to write in his presence, and I was very careful not to express myself too unguardedly in my letter.