After that, I dressed, masked myself, and went to the opera, where I sat down to a faro-table and lost all my money.  Fortune was determined to shew me that it does not always agree with love.  My heart was heavy, I felt miserable; I went to bed.  When I woke in the morning, I saw De la Haye come into my room with a beaming countenance, and, assuming an air of devoted friendship, he made a great show of his feelings towards me.  I knew what to think of it all, and I waited for the ‘denouement’.

“My dear friend,” he said to me at last, “why did you dissuade M. Dandolo from doing what I had insinuated to him?”

“What had you insinuated to him?”

“You know well enough.”

“If I knew it, I would not ask you”

“M.  Dandolo himself told me that you had advised him against it.”

“Advised against, that may be, but certainly not dissuaded, for if he had been persuaded in his own mind he would not have asked my advice.”

“As you please; but may I enquire your reasons?”

“Tell me first what your proposal was.”

“Has he not told you?”

“Perhaps he has; but if you wish to know my reasons, I must hear the whole affair from your own lips, because M. Dandolo spoke to me under a promise of secrecy.”

“Of what good is all this reserve?”

“Everyone has his own principles and his own way of thinking:  I have a sufficiently good opinion of you to believe that you would act exactly as I do, for I have heard you say that in all secret matters one ought to guard against surprise.”

“I am incapable of taking such an advantage of a friend; but as a general rule your maxim is a right one; I like prudence.  I will tell you the whole affair.  You are aware that Madame Tripolo has been left a widow, and that M. Dandolo is courting her assiduously, after having done the same for fourteen years during the life of the husband.  The lady, who is still young, beautiful and lovely, and also is very respectable, wishes to become his wife.  It is to me that she has confided her wishes, and as I saw nothing that was not praiseworthy, either in a temporal or in a spiritual point of view, in that union, for after all we are all men, I took the affair in hand with real pleasure.  I fancied even that M. Dandolo felt some inclination for that marriage when he told me that he would give me his decision this morning.  I am not astonished at his having asked your advice in such an important affair, for a prudent man is right in asking the opinion of a wise friend before taking a decisive step; but I must tell you candidly that I am astonished at your disapproval of such a marriage.  Pray excuse me if, in order to improve by the information, I ask why your opinion is exactly the reverse of mine.”

Delighted at having discovered the whole affair, at having arrived in time to prevent my friend who was goodness itself contracting an absurd marriage, I answered the hypocrite that I loved M. Dandolo, that I knew his temperament, and that I was certain that a marriage with a woman like Madame Tripolo would shorten his life.