One day the English ambassador, after giving me a supper at his casino with the celebrated Fanny Murray, asked me to let him sup at my casino at Muran, which I now only kept up for the sake of Tonine.  I granted him the favour, but did not imitate his generosity.  He found my little mistress smiling and polite, but always keeping within the bounds of decency, from which he would have very willingly excused her.  The next morning he wrote to me as follows: 

“I am madly in love with Tonine.  If you like to hand her over to me I will make the following provision for her:  I will set her up in a suitable lodging which I will furnish throughout, and which I will give to her with all its contents, provided that I may visit her whenever I please, and that she gives me all the rights of a fortunate lover.  I will give her a maid, a cook, and thirty sequins a month as provision for two people, without reckoning the wine, which I will procure myself.  Besides this I will give her a life income of two hundred crowns per annum, over which she will have full control after living with me for a year.  I give you a week to send your answer.”

I replied immediately that I would let him know in three days whether his proposal were accepted, for Tonine had a mother of whom she was fond, and she would possibly not care to do anything without her consent.  I also informed him that in all appearance the girl was with child.

The business was an important one for Tonine.  I loved her, but I knew perfectly well that we could not pass the rest of our lives together, and I saw no prospect of being able to make her as good a provision as that offered by the ambassador.  Consequently I had no doubts on the question, and the very same day I went to Muran and told her all.

“You wish to leave me, then,” said she, in tears.

“I love you, dearest, and what I propose ought to convince you of my love.”

“Not so; I cannot serve two masters.”

“You will only serve your new lover, sweetheart.  I beg of you to reflect that you will have a fine dowry, on the strength of which you may marry well; and that however much I love you I cannot possibly make so good a provision for you.”

“Leave me to-day for tears and reflection, and come to supper with me to-morrow.”

I did not fail to keep the appointment.

“I think your English friend is a very pretty man,” she said, “and when he speaks in the Venetian dialect it makes me die with laughter.  If my mother agrees, I might, perhaps, force myself to love him.  Supposing we did not agree we could part at the end of a year, and I should be the richer by an income of two hundred crowns.”

“I am charmed with the sense of your arguments; speak about it to your mother.”

“I daren’t, sweetheart; this kind of thing is too delicate to be discussed between a mother and her daughter speak to her yourself.”

“I will, indeed.”