Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/87

Rh my friendship and affection. But to what an alternative do you reduce me, if I must either refuse you the only aid that you will accept, or else violate my sense of duty in granting it to you! For would it not be taking part in your immorality were I to supply you with the means of persisting in it? However," he continued, after a moment's thought, "I suppose it may be that the state of desperation into which poverty has driven you scarcely leaves you free to choose the better course. Calmness of mind is essential for the appreciation of wisdom and truth. I will find a way of letting you have some money. Allow me, my dear Chevalier," he added, pressing my hand, "to attach only this one condition to my doing so: that you tell me where you are living, and give me leave at any rate to use my best endeavors to bring you back to the path of virtue, which I know you love, and from which you are led astray only by the violence of your passions."

I gave my willing consent to all that he desired, and begged him to commiserate me on the malignity of fate which allowed me to profit so little by the counsels of so virtuous a friend.

He then took me at once to a banker of his acquaintance, who advanced me one hundred pistoles on his note