hing
should occur to compel me to disclose the discovery I had already made,
I was determined on the following day to move my establishment into
town, and fix myself in a quarter where I should have nothing to
apprehend from the interference of princes. This arrangement made me
pass the night more tranquilly, but it by no means put an end to the
alarm I felt at the prospect of a new infidelity.

"When I awoke in the morning, Manon said to me, that although we were
to pass the day at home, she did not at all wish that I should be less
carefully dressed than on other occasions; and that she had a
particular fancy for doing the duties of my toilette that morning with
her own hands. It was an amusement she often indulged in: but she
appeared to take more pains on this occasion than I had ever observed
before. To gratify her, I was obliged to sit at her toilette table,
and try all the different modes she imagined for dressing my hair. In
the course of the operation, she made me often turn my head round
towards her, and putting both hands upon my shoulders, she would
examine me with most anxious curiosity: then, showing her approbation
by one or two kisses, she would make me resume my position before the
glass, in order to continue her occupation.

"This amatory trifling engaged us till dinner-time. The pleasure she
seemed to derive from it, and her more than usual gaiety, appeared to
me so thoroughly natural, that I found it impossible any longer to
suspect the treason I had previously conjured up; and I was several
times on the point of candidly opening my mind to her, and throwing off
a load that had begun to weigh heavily upon my heart: but I flattered
myself with the hope that the explanation would every moment come from
herself, and I anticipated the delicious triumph this would afford me.

"We returned to her boudoir. She began again to put my hair in order,
and I humoured all her whims; when they came to say that the Prince of
---- was below, and wished to see her. The name alone almost threw me
into a rage.

"'What then,' exclaimed I, as I indignantly pushed her from me,
'who?--what prince?'

"She made no answer to my enquiries.

"'Show him upstairs,' said she coolly to the servant; and then turning
towards me, 'Dearest love! you whom I so fervently adore,' she added in
the most bewitching tone, 'I only ask of you one moment's patience; one
moment, one single moment! I will love you ten thousand times