In the meanwhile Clairmont had brought up my niece’s luggage, and I went away promising to return and see her another day.

I had another and as important an arrangement to conclude, I mean with respect to Marcoline.  I told the postillions to take me to the worthy old man’s where I had lodged Rosalie so pleasantly.  Marcoline was weeping at this separation from her friend.  I got down at the house, and made my bargain hastily.  My new mistress was, I said, to be lodged, fed, and attended on as if she had been a princess.  He shewed me the apartment she was to occupy; it was fit for a young marchioness, and he told me that she should be attended by his own niece, that she should not leave the house, and that nobody but myself should visit her.

Having made these arrangements I made the fair Venetian come in.  I gave her the money she had won, which I had converted into gold and made up to a thousand ducats.

“You won’t want it here,” said I, “so take care of it.  At Venice a thousand ducats will make you somebody.  Do not weep, dearest, my heart is with you, and to-morrow evening I will sup with you.”

The old man gave me the latch-key, and I went off to the “Treize Cantons.”  I was expected, and my rooms were adjacent to those occupied by Madame d’Urfe.

As soon as I was settled, Bourgnole waited on me, and told me her mistress was alone and expecting me impatiently.

I shall not trouble my readers with an account of our interview, as it was only composed of Madame d’Urfe’s mad flights of fancy, and of lies on my part which had not even the merit of probability.  A slave to my life of happy profligacy, I profited by her folly; she would have found someone else to deceive her, if I had not done so, for it was really she who deceived herself.  I naturally preferred to profit by her rather than that a stranger should do so; she was very rich, and I did myself a great deal of good, without doing anyone any harm.  The first thing she asked me was, “Where is Querilinthos?” And she jumped with joy when I told her that he was under the same roof.

“’Tis he, then, who shall make me young again.  So has my genius assured me night after night.  Ask Paralis if the presents I have prepared are good enough for Semiramis to present to the head of the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross.”

I did not know what these presents were, and as I could not ask to see them, I answered that, before consulting Paralis, it would be necessary to consecrate the gifts under the planetary hours, and that Querilinthos himself must not see them before the consecration.  Thereupon she took me to her closet, and shewed me the seven packets meant for the Rosicrucian in the form of offerings to the seven planets.

Each packet contained seven pounds of the metal proper to the planet, and seven precious stones, also proper to the planets, each being seven carats in weight; there were diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, chrysolites, topazes, and opals.