“‘No,’ said he, ’I have been writing all night, but please don’t say anything about it to your aunt:  I promised with all my heart to be as silent as the grave.”

“Does he make sheep’s eyes at you?”

“No, but if he did it would be all the same.  Though he is not over sharp he knows, I think, what I think of him.”

“Why have you such a poor opinion of him?”

“Why?  My aunt pays him.  I think selling one’s self is a dreadful idea.”

“But you pay me.”

“Yes, but in the same coin as you give me.”

The old aunt was always calling her niece stupid, but on the contrary I thought her very clever, and as virtuous as clever.  I should never have seduced her if she had not been brought up in a convent.

I went back to Tiretta, and had some pleasant conversation with him.  I asked him how he liked his place.

“I don’t like it much, but as it costs me nothing I am not absolutely wretched.”

“But her face!”

“I don’t look at it, and there’s one thing I like about her—­she is so clean.”

“Does she take good care of you?”

“O yes, she is full of feeling for me.  This morning she refused the greeting I offered her.  ‘I am sure,’ said she, ’that my refusal will pain you, but your health is so dear to me that I feel bound to look after it.”

As soon as the gloomy Abbe des Forges was gone and Madame was alone, we rejoined her.  She treated me as her gossip, and played the timid child for Tiretta’s benefit, and he played up to her admirably, much to my admiration.

“I shall see no more of that foolish priest,” said she; “for after telling me that I was lost both in this world and the next he threatened to abandon me, and I took him at his word.”

An actress named Quinault, who had left the stage and lived close by, came to call, and soon after Madame Favart and the Abbe de Voisenon arrived, followed by Madame Amelin with a handsome lad named Calabre, whom she called her nephew.  He was as like her as two peas, but she did not seem to think that a sufficient reason for confessing she was his mother.  M. Patron, a Piedmontese, who also came with her, made a bank at faro and in a couple of hours won everybody’s money with the exception of mine, as I knew better than to play.  My time was better occupied in the company of my sweet mistress.  I saw through the Piedmontese, and had put him down as a knave; but Tiretta was not so sharp, and consequently lost all the money he had in his pockets and a hundred louis besides.  The banker having reaped a good harvest put down the cards, and Tiretta told him in good Italian that he was a cheat, to which the Piedmontese replied with the greatest coolness that he lied.  Thinking that the quarrel might have an unpleasant ending, I told him that Tiretta was only jesting, and I made my friend say so, too.  He then left the company and went to his room.