Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/46

50 tress of mine. I submitted to this banter with good grace. I was even delighted at being permitted to talk of the subject which occupied my thoughts unceasingly. But a casual remark of my father's suddenly riveted my attention. He made some allusion to perfidy, and to the far from disinterested services rendered him by M. de B. I was thunderstruck on hearing him utter this name, and begged him humbly to explain himself more fully. He turned to my brother and asked him if he had not told me the whole story. My brother replied that I had seemed to him so little disturbed in mind during our journey that he had not considered me in need of that remedy to cure me of my folly. Observing that my father was hesitating whether or not to complete his explanations, I implored him so earnestly to do so, that he satisfied me—or, rather, he tortured me cruelly by the relation of the following abominable story.

To begin with, he asked me whether I had throughout been simple enough to suppose that my mistress loved me. I told him unflinchingly that I was so sure of it that nothing could excite in me the least distrust on that point. "Ha! ha! ha!" he exclaimed, laughing heartily; "this is excellent! You are a pretty dupe! Your fine senti-