Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/72

76 years some change must inevitably occur in my family affairs. My father is advanced in years, and may die; in which case I shall come into property which will place us beyond the reach of any further anxiety."

I have been guilty of many worse follies in my life than this arrangement would have been, had we been wise enough to persevere in our strict adherence to it; but our resolutions lasted barely more than a month. Manon was devoted to pleasure: I was devoted to her. Fresh occasions for extravagance were incessantly arising; and—so far from grudging the money which she spent, often with lavish prodigality—I was the first to procure her everything which I thought likely to afford her gratification.

Even our residence at Chaillot soon began to grow irksome to her. Winter was drawing near; every one was returning to town, and the country was commencing to look deserted. She suggested that we should take a house in Paris. To this I refused my consent; but, in order to partially satisfy her, I told her that we might hire furnished apartments in town, where we could spend the night when we chanced to be very late in leaving the Assembly Ball, to which we were in the habit of going three or four times a week; for the inconvenience of returning to Chaillot at so late an hour was the pretext she advanced for her wish to move away from that village. Thus we indulged ourselves in two sets of lodgings: one in town and the other in the country. This change soon threw our affairs into the utmost confusion, by bringing about two occurrences which were fraught with ruinous consequences to us.

Manon had a brother who was an officer of the Royal Guard. By an unlucky coincidence, his lodgings in Paris happened to be in the same street as our own. Seeing