Page:The Story of Manon Lescaut and the Chevalier Des Grieux.djvu/35

34 After having eaten my supper with greater zest than I had ever before felt for that meal, I withdrew to put our project into execution. My arrangements were the more easily made from the fact that what Uttle luggage I had was already packed in preparation for my intended return home the following day. I had thus nothing further t/O do than to have my trunk removed, and to hire a chaise, to be ready at five o'clock in the morning — at which hour the town gates would be opened. But I encountered an unforeseen obstacle, which came within an ace of defeat- ing my whole scheme.

Tiberge, though only three years my elder, was a young man of mature judgment and very vii^tuous habits of life. He loved me with a deep affection such as is rarely to be met with. The beauty of Mademoiselle Manon. my eagerness to escort her, and the evident pains I had bcHMi at to get rid of him, had all combined to aw'iken some sus- picion of my infatuation in his mind.

He had not ventured to return to the inn wheie he had left me, for fear that I might be annoyed at his doing so, but had gone to await me at my lodgings, where I found him when I came in, although it was ten o'clock in the evening. His presence disconcerted me, and he was not long in perceiving that I found it irksome.

"I am sure," he said to me frankly, "that you have some project in mind which you are anxious to conceal from me; I can see it by your mannei"

I replied, brusquely enough, that I was not obliged to account to him for all my intentions.

"No," he responded, "but you have always treated me as a friend, and that relation presupposes some degree of confidence and candor."

He pressed me so earnestly and so persistently to disclose my secret to him, that, never having been in the