sentiment, and I could therefore only be a burden to him, for he was not wealthy.  Besides, there was a miserable consideration which increased my secret sorrow.  I thought myself bound in duty to caress him, and on his side, as he thought that he ought to pay me in the same money, I was afraid of his ruining his health for me, and that idea made me very unhappy.  Having no love for each other, we allowed a foolish feeling of regard to make both of us uncomfortable.  We lavished, for the sake of a well-meaning but false decorum, that which belongs to love alone.  Another thing troubled me greatly.  I was afraid lest people might suppose that I was a source of profit to him.  That idea made me feel the deepest shame, yet, whenever I thought of it, I could not help admitting that such a supposition, however false, was not wanting in probability.  It is owing to that feeling that you found me so reserved towards you, for I was afraid that you might harbour that fearful idea if I allowed, you to read in my looks the favourable impression which you had made on my heart.”

“Then it was not owing to a feeling of self-love?”

“No, I confess it, for you could but judge me as I deserved.  I had been guilty of the folly now known to you because my father-in-law intended to bury me in a convent, and that did not suit my taste.  But, dearest friend, you must forgive me if, I cannot confide even to you the history of my life.”

“I respect your secret, darling; you need not fear any intrusion from me on that subject.  All we have to do is to love one another, and not to allow any dread of the future to mar our actual felicity.”

The next day, after a night of intense enjoyment, I found myself more deeply in love than before, and the next three months were spent by us in an intoxication of delight.

At nine o’clock the next morning the teacher of Italian was announced.  I saw a man of respectable appearance, polite, modest, speaking little but well, reserved in his answers, and with the manners of olden times.  We conversed, and I could not help laughing when he said, with an air of perfect good faith, that a Christian could only admit the system of Copernicus as a clever hypothesis.  I answered that it was the system of God Himself because it was that of nature, and that it was not in Holy Scripture that the laws of science could be learned.

The teacher smiled in a manner which betrayed the Tartufe, and if I had consulted only my own feelings I should have dismissed the poor man, but I thought that he might amuse Henriette and teach her Italian; after all it was what I wanted from him.  My dear wife told him that she would give him six libbre for a lesson of two hours:  the libbra of Parma being worth only about threepence, his lessons were not very expensive.  She took her first lesson immediately and gave him two sequins, asking him to purchase her some good novels.

Whilst my dear Henriette was taking her lesson, I had some conversation with the dressmaker, in order to ascertain whether she was a relative of mine.