Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/246

250 he loves with a constancy which he never showed towards his wife? To keep a mistress, in fact, is esteemed a point of honor by two-thirds of the gentry of France. I have cheated a little at cards, but what of that? The Marquis of and the Count of  derive their whole incomes from that source alone; while the Prince of  and His Grace the Duke of  are the chiefs in a League of 'Knights' of the same order."

It would have been equally easy for me to prove that I was not without precedents in the matter of my designs on the purses of the two G Ms, but I had too much sense of honor left to allow me to do anything but condemn myself on that point, in common with all those whose examples I might have pleaded. I merely begged my father, therefore, to overlook that fault in consideration of the fact that I had been driven to its commission by two such overmastering passions as Love and Revenge.

He then asked me whether I could suggest any means for him to adopt in order to procure me my liberty as speedily as possible without public scandal. I told him