Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux.pdf/90

94 ply the money for hers, and to forego any necessities of my own rather than limit her even in superfluities. The coach gave me more anxiety than anything else, for there did not seem to be any likelihood of our being able to keep the horses and coachman. I confided my uneasiness on this point to M. Lescaut. I had not concealed from him the fact that I had received a hundred pistoles from a friend of mine. He told me again that if I felt disposed to try the chances of the gaming-table, he was not without hopes that, by sacrificing with a good grace a hundred francs or so in treating the members of the fraternity, I might, on his recommendation, be admitted into the League of the Chevaliers d'Industrie. Repugnant as the idea of cheating was to me, I suffered myself to be overruled by cruel necessity.

M. Lescaut introduced me that very evening as a relative of his own. He added that I was the more eager to succeed from the fact that I stood in need of the greatest favors Dame Fortune could bestow. In order to show them, however, that my straits were not those of a pauper, he told them that it was my intention to treat them to supper.

The offer was accepted, and I regaled them in princely