I dressed myself to go out, and while I was at my toilet Vesian came in and told me that he did not like to go into his sister’s room because the gentleman who had supped with her had just arrived.

“That’s a matter of course,” I said.

“He is rich and very handsome.  He wishes to take us himself to Versailles, and promises to procure some employment for me.”

“I congratulate you.  Who is he?”

“I do not know.”

I placed in an envelope the papers she had entrusted to me, and I handed them to him to return to his sister.  I then went out.  When I came home towards three o’clock, the landlady gave me a letter which had been left for me by Mdlle.  Vesian, who had left the hotel.

I went to my room, opened the letter, and read the following lines: 

“I return the money you have lent me with my best thanks.  The Count de Narbonne feels interested in me, and wishes to assist me and my brother.  I shall inform you of everything, of the house in which he wishes me to go and live, where he promises to supply me all I want.  Your friendship is very dear to me, and I entreat you not to forget me.  My brother remains at the hotel, and my room belongs to me for the month.  I have paid everything.”

“Here is,” said I to myself, “a second Lucie de Pasean, and I am a second time the dupe of my foolish delicacy, for I feel certain that the count will not make her happy.  But I wash my hands of it all.”

I went to the Theatre Francais in the evening, and enquired about Narbonne.  The first person I spoke to told me,

“He is the son of a wealthy man, but a great libertine and up to his neck in debts.”

Nice references, indeed!  For a week I went to all the theatres and public places in the hope of making the acquaintance of the count, but I could not succeed, and I was beginning to forget the adventure when one morning, towards eight o’clock Vesian calling on me, told me that his sister was in her room and wished to speak to me.  I followed him immediately.  I found her looking unhappy and with eyes red from crying.  She told her brother to go out for a walk, and when he had gone she spoke to me thus: 

“M. de Narbonne, whom I thought an honest man, because I wanted him to be such, came to sit by me where you had left me at the theatre; he told me that my face had interested him, and he asked me who I was.  I told him what I had told you.  You had promised to think of me, but Narbonne told me that he did not want your assistance, as he could act by himself.  I believed him, and I have been the dupe of my confidence in him; he has deceived me; he is a villain.”

The tears were choking her:  I went to the window so as to let her cry without restraint:  a few minutes after, I came back and I sat down by her.

“Tell me all, my dear Vesian, unburden your heart freely, and do not think yourself guilty towards me; in reality I have been wrong more than you.  Your heart would not now be a prey to sorrow if I had not been so imprudent as to leave you alone at the theatre.”