“Why write, when we can talk the matter over?”

“Because one is often more at ease in writing than in speaking.”

“In diplomacy and business that will pass, but not in love.  Love makes no conditions.  Let us have no documents, no safeguards, but give yourself up to me as Rosalie did, and begin to-night without my promising anything.  If you trust in love, you will make him your prisoner.  That way will honour us and our pleasures, and if you like I will consult M. de Grimaldi on the subject.  As to your plan, if it does not injure your honour, it does small justice to your common sense, and no one but a fool would agree to it.  You could not possibly love the man to whom you make such a proposal, and as to M. de Grimaldi, far from having anything to do with it, I am sure he would be indignant at the very idea.”

This discourse did not put Veronique out of countenance.  She said she did not love me well enough to give herself to me unconditionally; to which I replied that I was not sufficiently taken with her charms to buy them at the price she fixed, and so I left her.

I called Costa, and told him to go and warn the master of the felucca that I was going the next day, and with this idea I went to bid good-bye to the marquis, who informed me that he had just been taking Petri to see Rosalie, who had received him well enough.  I told him I was glad to hear it, and said that I commended to him the care of her happiness, but such commendations were thrown away.

It is one of the most curious circumstances of my history, that in one year two women whom I sincerely loved and whom I might have married were taken from me by two old men, whose affections I had fostered without wishing to do so.  Happily these gentlemen made my mistresses’ fortunes, but on the other hand they did me a still greater service in relieving me of a tie which I should have found very troublesome in course of time.  No doubt they both saw that my fortune, though great in outward show, rested on no solid basis, which, as the reader will see, was unhappily too true.  I should be happy if I thought that my errors or rather follies would serve as a warning to the readers of these Memoirs.

I spent the day in watching the care with which Veronique and Annette packed up my trunks, for I would not let my two servants help in any way.  Veronique was neither sad nor gay.  She looked as if she had made up her mind, and as if there had never been any differences between us.  I was very glad, for as I no longer cared for her I should have been annoyed to find that she still cared for me.

We supped in our usual manner, discussing only commonplace topics, but just as I was going to bed Annette shook my hand in a way that told me to prepare for a visit from her.  I admired the natural acuteness of young girls, who take their degrees in the art of love with so much ease and at such an early age.  Annette, almost a child, knew more than a young man of twenty.  I decided on giving her fifty sequins without letting Veronique see me, as I did not intend to be so liberal towards her.  I took a roll of ducats and gave them to her as soon as she came.