Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/79

Rh "All this is very vague, M. Lescaut," said I. "The necessities of my case would seem to demand a more immediate remedy; what am I to tell Manon, for instance?"

"You need be under no anxiety about Manon, I should say," was his reply. "With her you have always the means of putting an end to your embarrassments whenever you please. A girl such as she is ought to support us all three."

I was about to rebuke him as he deserved for this insolent suggestion, when he cut me short by going on to say that he would guarantee my having, before night, a thousand crowns, to be divided between us, if I would consent to be guided by his advice. He knew a nobleman, he continued, who was so liberal in all that concerned his pleasures, that he was sure he would think nothing of pacing that amount to secure the favors of a girl like Manon. Here I stopped him.

"I entertained a higher opinion of you than this," I exclaimed. "I was under the impression that your motive in according me your friendship was based upon sentiments entirely opposed to those which you now profess."

He unblushingly avowed that he had been of this way of thinking from the first; and that his sister having