“How can she be my daughter when I have never known her mother?”

“She told me that certainly.”

“Didn’t she tell you anything else?”

“Yes, she told me that you lived with her for three days and bought her maidenhead for a thousand sequins.”

“Quite so, but did she tell you that I paid the money to her father?”

“Yes, the little fool doesn’t keep anything for herself.  I don’t think I should ever be jealous of your mistresses, if you let me sleep with them.  Is not that a mark of a good disposition?  Tell me.”

“You have, no doubt, a good disposition, but you could be quite as good without your dominant passion.”

“It is not a passion.  I only have desires for those I love.”

“Who gave you this taste?”

“Nature.  I began at seven, and in the last ten years I have certainly had four hundred sweethearts.”

“You begin early.  But when did you begin to have male sweethearts?”

“At eleven.”

“Tell me all about it.”

“Father Molini, a monk, was my confessor, and he expressed a desire to know the girl who was then my sweetheart.  It was in the carnival time, and he gave us a moral discourse, telling us that he would take us to the play if we would promise to abstain for a week.  We promised to do so, and at the end of the week we went to tell him that we had kept our word faithfully.  The next day Father Molini called on my sweetheart’s aunt in a mask, and as she knew him, and as he was a monk and a confessor, we were allowed to go with him.  Besides, we were mere children; my sweetheart was only a year older than I.

“After the play the father took us to an inn, and gave us some supper; and when the meal was over he spoke to us of our sin, and wanted to see our privates.  ‘It’s a great sin between two girls,’ said he, ’but between a man and a woman it is a venial matter.  Do you know how men are made?’ We both knew, but we said no with one consent.  ’Then would you like to know?’ said he.  We said we should like to know very much, and he added, ’If you will promise to keep it a secret, I may be able to satisfy your curiosity.’  We gave our promises, and the good father proceeded to gratify us with a sight of the riches which nature had lavished on him, and in the course of an hour he had turned us into women.  I must confess that he understood so well how to work on our curiosity that the request came from us.  Three years later, when I was fourteen, I became the mistress of a young jeweller.  Then came your brother; but he got nothing from me, because he began by saying that he could not ask me to give him any favours till we were married.”

“You must have been amused at that.”

“Yes, it did make me laugh, because I did not know that a priest could get married; and he excited my curiosity by telling me that they managed it at Geneva.  Curiosity and wantonness made me escape with him; you know the rest.”