As the dessert was placed on the table, P——­ C——­, somewhat excited by the wine he had drunk, kissed his lady-love, and challenged me to follow his example with his sister.  I told him that I loved Mdlle.  C——­ C——­ truly, and that I would not take such liberties with her until I should have acquired a legal right to her favours.  P——­ C——­ began to scoff at what I had said, but C——­ stopped him.  Grateful for that mark of propriety, I took out of my pocket the twelve pairs of gloves which I had bought in the morning, and after I had begged her acceptance of half a dozen pairs I gave the other six to my young friend.  P——­ C——­ rose from the table with a sneer, dragging along with him his mistress, who had likewise drunk rather freely, and he threw himself on a sofa with her.  The scene taking a lewd turn, I placed myself in such a manner as to hide them from the view of my young friend, whom I led into the recess of a window.  But I had not been able to prevent C——­ C——­ from seeing in a looking-glass the position of the two impudent wretches, and her face was suffused with blushes; I, however, spoke to her quietly of indifferent things, and recovering her composure she answered me, speaking of her gloves, which she was folding on the pier-table.  After his brutal exploit, P——­ C——­ came impudently to me and embraced me; his dissolute companion, imitating his example, kissed my young friend, saying she was certain that she had seen nothing.  C——­ C——­ answered modestly that she did not know what she could have seen, but the look she cast towards me made me understand all she felt.  If the reader has any knowledge of the human heart, he must guess what my feelings were.  How was it possible to endure such a scene going on in the presence of an innocent girl whom I adored, when I had to fight hard myself with my own burning desires so as not to abuse her innocence!  I was on a bed of thorns!  Anger and indignation, restrained by the reserve I was compelled to adopt for fear of losing the object of my ardent love, made me tremble all over.  The inventors of hell would not have failed to place that suffering among its torments, if they had known it.  The lustful P——­ C——­ had thought of giving me a great proof of his friendship by the disgusting action he had been guilty of, and he had reckoned as nothing the dishonour of his mistress, and the delicacy of his sister whom he had thus exposed to prostitution.  I do not know how I contrived not to strangle him.  The next day, when he called on me, I overwhelmed him with the most bitter reproaches, and he tried to excuse himself by saying that he never would have acted in that manner if he had not felt satisfied that I had already treated his sister in the tete-a-tete in the same way that he treated his mistress before us.