The time had come for me to pay her the hundred ducats.  I told her frankly that I was obliged to go to Portugal, and that I could not make my appearance there in company with a pretty woman without failing in my project.  I added that my means would not allow me to pay double expenses for so long a journey.

She had received too many proofs of my love to think for a moment that I had got tired of her, and wanted to be on with some other woman.  She told me that she owed everything to me, while I owed nothing to her; and that all she asked of me was to enable her to return to Montpellier.

“I have relations there,” said she, “who will be glad to see me, and I hope that my husband will let me return to him.  I am the Prodigal Son, and I hope to find in him the forgiving father.”

I told her I would do my utmost to send her home in safety and comfort.

Towards the middle of December I left Dresden with Madame Blasin.  My purse only contained four hundred ducats, for I had had a run of bad luck at play; and the journey to Leipzig had cost me altogether three hundred ducats.  I told my mistress nothing of all this, for my only thought was how to please her.

We stayed a short while at Prague, and reached Vienna on Christmas Day.  We put up at the “Red Bull,” the Countess Blasin (who had been transformed into a milliner) in one room, and I in another, so that we might pass for strangers while continuing our intimacy.

The next morning, as we were taking coffee together, two individuals came into the room, and asked the rude question,—­

“Who are you, madam?”

“My name is Blasin.”

“Who is this gentleman?”

“You had better ask him.”

“What are you doing at Vienna?”

“Taking coffee.  I should have thought you could have seen that for yourselves.”

“If the gentleman is not your husband, you will leave the town within twenty-four hours.”

“The gentleman is my friend, and not my husband; and I shall leave Vienna exactly when I choose, unless you make me go away by force.”

“Very good.  We are aware, sir, that you have a separate room, but that makes no difference.”

Thereupon one of the policemen entered my room, I following him.

“What do you want here?” said I.

“I am looking at your bed, and I can see you have not slept in it.  That’s enough.”

“The devil!  What business have you here at all, and who authorizes such disgraceful proceedings?”

He made no reply, but returned to Madame Blasin’s room, where they both ordered her to leave Vienna in the course of twenty-four hours, and then they both left us.

“Dress yourself,” said I to her, “and tell the French ambassador the whole story.  Tell him that you are a milliner, Blasin by name, and that all you want is to go from here to Strasburg, and from there to Montpellier.”