The latter plan seemed to me impossible, so I determined to adhere to the first; but the wretched woman had resolved to defeat all my plans.  The manner in which she succeeded must have been the result of a council of the whole society.

A few days after the Vauxhall supper Goudar called on me, and began by congratulating me on my resolution not to visit the Ansperghers any more, “for,” said he, “the girl would have made you more and more in love with her, and in the end she would have seduced you to beggary.”

“You must think me a great fool.  If I had found her kind I should have been grateful, but without squandering all my money; and if she had been cruel, instead of ridiculous, I might have given her what I have already given her every day, without reducing myself to beggary.”

“I congratulate you; it shews that you are well off.  But have you made up your mind not to see her again?”

“Certainly.”

“Then you are not in love with her?”

“I have been in love, but I am so no longer; and in a few days she will have passed completely out of my memory.  I had almost forgotten her when I met her with you at Vauxhall.”

“You are not cured.  The way to be cured of an amour does not lie in flight, when the two parties live in the same town.  Meetings will happen, and all the trouble has to be taken over again.”

“Then do you know a better way?”

“Certainly; you should satiate yourself.  It is quite possible that the creature is not in love with you, but you are rich and she has nothing.  You might have had her for so much, and you could have left her when you found her to be unworthy of your constancy.  You must know what kind of a woman she is.”

“I should have tried this method gladly, but I found her out.”

“You could have got the best of her, though, if you had gone to work in the proper way.  You should never have paid in advance.  I know everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know she has cost you a hundred guineas, and that you have not won so much as a kiss from her.  Why, my dear sir, you might have had her comfortably in your own bed for as much!  She boasts that she took you in, though you pride yourself on your craft.”

“It was an act of charity towards her aunt.”

“Yes, to make her Balm of Life; but you know if it had not been for the niece the aunt would never have had the money.”

“Perhaps not, but how come you who are of their party to be talking to me in this fashion?”

“I swear to you I only speak out of friendship for you, and I will tell you how I came to make the acquaintance of the girl, her mother, her grandmother and her two aunts, and then you will no longer consider me as of their party.