prived him of but for
this stratagem. He confessed to me that he found the object of his
pretended ardours infinitely more kind than she who inspires the real
ones: but this gratification of his vanity is of little consequence to
his peace;--he engaged me to attend you this day, to conjure you to
believe his heart is incapable of being influenced by any other charms,
and whatever he makes shew of to Melanthe, his heart is devoted wholly
to you,--begs you to permit him to entertain you without the presence of
that lady, the means of which he will take care to contrive; and charged
me to assure you, that there is no sacrifice so great, but he will
readily offer it to convince you of the sincerity of his attachment.

This, madame, added he, is the unpleasing task my promise bound me to
perform, and which I have acquitted myself of with the same pain that
man would do who, by some strange caprice of fate, was constrained to
throw into the sea the sum of all his hopes.

The indignation which filled the virtuous foul of Louisa, while he was
giving her this detail of the count's presumption, falsehood, and
ingratitude, prevented her from giving much attention to the apology
with which he concluded. Never, since the behaviour of mr. B----n at
mrs. C--g--'s, had she met with any thing that she thought so much
merited her resentment:--so great was her disdain she had not words to
express it, but by some tears, which the rising passion forced from her
eyes:--Heaven! cried she, which of my actions has drawn on me this
unworthy treatment?--This was all she was able to utter, while she
walked backward and forward in the room endeavouring to compose herself,
and form some answer befitting of the message.

Monsieur du Plessis looked on her all this while with admiration: all
that seemed lovely in her, when he knew no more of her than that she was
young and beautiful, was now heightened in his eyes almost to divine, by
that virtuous pride which shewed him some part of her more charming
mind. What he extremely liked before, he now almost adored; and having,
by the loose manner in which the count had mentioned these two English
ladies, imagined them women of not over-rigid principles, now finding
his mistake, at least as concerning one of them, was so much ashamed and
angry with himself for having been the cause of that disorder he was
witness of, that he for some moments was equally at a loss to appease,
as she who felt was to express