Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/62

66 curiosity, or, perhaps, some sense of penitence at having betrayed me (which of the two sentiments I have never been able to determine), excited her interest in a name so like mine; and she came to the Sorbonne with some other ladies. She was present during my presentation of my thesis, and doubtless had little difficulty in recognizing me.

I was entirely unconscious of her presence, for, in these places, as you know, there are private boxes reserved for ladies, in which they are hidden from view behind latticework screens. I returned to St. Sulpice, covered with glory and overwhelmed with compliments. It was then six o'clock in the evening. A few minutes after my return, I was informed that a lady desired to see me. I proceeded at once to the parlor, little suspecting the startling apparition that there awaited me. Manon! It was she—but more radiantly beautiful than I had ever seen her. She was in her eighteenth year, and words fail me to describe her loveliness. There was a delicate grace, a sweetness, a fascination about her which might have been envied by the Goddess of Love herself. To my eyes she seemed a vision of enchantment.

I was so overcome with emotion at seeing her that I could not utter a word; and, unable to conjecture what the object of her visit could be, I stood trembling and with my eyes cast down, awaiting her explanation. For some minutes her embarrassment was as great as my own, but at last, finding that I did not break the silence, she covered her face with her hands to hide the tears which were beginning to fall from her eyes, and, in a timid voice, said that she knew she deserved my hatred for her unfaithfulness, but that if I had ever really loved her, I had been very cruel to allow two years to go by without making any effort to let her know what had become of me, and