Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/245

Rh closely to his breast that I could feel his heart throbbing with emotion, the nature of which it was easy for me to divine.

"But," he said, as soon as he was calm enough to speak again, "how are we to obtain your release from this place? Come! tell me frankly exactly how matters stand."

There was, after all, nothing absolutely dishonorable in my conduct as a whole—judging it, that is, by the standard set up by young men of rank and fashion; nor in our day is it regarded as a heinous offence to keep a mistress, any more than it is to resort to a little artifice in order to turn the fortunes of the gaming-table in one's own favor. Arguing thus with myself, I proceeded to give my father a faithful and detailed account of the life I had been leading; taking care to accompany the confession of each fault with an example of a similar delinquency on the part of some well-known personage, in order to diminish the shame of my own transgression.

"I live with a mistress," said I, "without being united to her by the ties of matrimony; but does not all Paris know that His Grace the Duke of keeps two, while M. de  has for ten years past had a mistress whom