Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/66

70 ings. All joys, in short, save those which I hope to taste with you, are unworthy of a thought, since they could not hold their own in my heart for a single moment against one glance from you!"

While I promised to bury all her past faults in oblivion, I could not resist the desire to know how it was that she had yielded to the seductions of B. She told me that he had caught sight of her at her window, and, becoming deeply enamoured of her, had declared his passion in a business-like manner, eminently characteristic of a farmer-general; that is to say, by sending her a letter in which he informed her that payment would be made in proportion to favors received. She had coquetted with him at first, but only in the hope of getting money enough from him to enable us to live in comfort. He had dazzled her by such magnificent promises, however, that her constancy had been gradually undermined; yet I might judge how great her compunction had been, she said, by the grief she had betrayed to me on the eve of our separation. In spite of the luxury in which he had maintained her, she had never been happy with him; not only because she found him lacking in the delicacy of feeling and amiability of manner which characterized me, but also because, even in the midst of the pleasures which he continually provided for her, her inmost heart was filled with the memory of my love and with remorse for her own infidelity. She spoke of Tiberge, and of the deep confusion into which his visit had thrown her. "Had a sword pierced my heart," added she, "the pang would have been less keen than the one I felt. I turned my back upon him, finding myself unable to bear his presence for even a moment."

She then went on to relate how she had learned of my residence in Paris, of my change of profession, and