“I am certain that you are in no hurry.”

“No,” I answered, “but I am starving.”

I brought joy to the brotherly trio, and I enhanced their happiness when I told my friends that I would remain six days with them.  De la Haye dined with us on that day; as soon as dinner was over he closeted himself with M. Dandoio, and for two hours they remained together.  I had gone to bed during that time, but M. Dandolo came up to me and told me that I had arrived just in time to consult the oracle respecting an important affair entirely private to himself.  He gave me the questions, and requested me to find the answers.  He wanted to know whether he would act rightly if he accepted a project proposed to him by De la Haye.

The oracle answered negatively.

M. Dandolo, rather surprised, asked a second question:  he wished Paralis to give his reasons for the denial.

I formed the cabalistic pile, and brought out this answer: 

“I asked Casanova’s opinion, and as I find it opposed to the proposal made by De la Haye, I do not wish to hear any more about it.”

Oh! wonderful power of self-delusion!  This worthy man, pleased at being able to throw the odium of a refusal on me, left me perfectly satisfied.  I had no idea of the nature of the affair to which he had been alluding, and I felt no curiosity about it; but it annoyed me that a Jesuit should interfere and try to make my friends do anything otherwise than through my instrumentality, and I wanted that intriguer to know that my influence was greater than his own.

After that, I dressed, masked myself, and went to the opera, where I sat down to a faro-table and lost all my money.  Fortune was determined to shew me that it does not always agree with love.  My heart was heavy, I felt miserable; I went to bed.  When I woke in the morning, I saw De la Haye come into my room with a beaming countenance, and, assuming an air of devoted friendship, he made a great show of his feelings towards me.  I knew what to think of it all, and I waited for the ‘denouement’.

“My dear friend,” he said to me at last, “why did you dissuade M. Dandolo from doing what I had insinuated to him?”

“What had you insinuated to him?”

“You know well enough.”

“If I knew it, I would not ask you”

“M.  Dandolo himself told me that you had advised him against it.”

“Advised against, that may be, but certainly not dissuaded, for if he had been persuaded in his own mind he would not have asked my advice.”

“As you please; but may I enquire your reasons?”

“Tell me first what your proposal was.”

“Has he not told you?”

“Perhaps he has; but if you wish to know my reasons, I must hear the whole affair from your own lips, because M. Dandolo spoke to me under a promise of secrecy.”

“Of what good is all this reserve?”

“Everyone has his own principles and his own way of thinking:  I have a sufficiently good opinion of you to believe that you would act exactly as I do, for I have heard you say that in all secret matters one ought to guard against surprise.”