“Manon was a creature of most extraordinary disposition.  Never had mortal a greater contempt for money, and yet she was haunted by perpetual dread of wanting it.  Her only desire was for pleasure and amusement.  She would never have wished to possess a sou, if pleasure could be procured without money.  She never even cared what our purse contained, provided she could pass the day agreeably; so that, being neither fond of play nor at all dazzled by the desire of great wealth, nothing was more easy than to satisfy her, by daily finding out amusements suited to her moderate wishes.  But it became by habit a thing so absolutely necessary for her to have her mind thus occupied, that, without it, it was impossible to exercise the smallest influence over her temper or inclinations.  Although she loved me tenderly, and I was the only person, as she often declared, in whose society she could ever find the pure enjoyments of love, yet I felt thoroughly convinced that her attachment could not withstand certain apprehensions.  She would have preferred me, even with a moderate fortune, to the whole world; but I had no kind of doubt that she would, on the other hand, abandon me for some new M. de B——­, when I had nothing more to offer her than fidelity and love.

“I resolved therefore so to curtail my own individual expenses, as to be able always to meet hers, and rather to deprive myself of a thousand necessaries than even to limit her extravagance.  The carriage made me more uneasy than anything else, for I saw no chance of being able to maintain either coachman or horses.

“I told M. Lescaut of my difficulties, and did not conceal from him that I had received a thousand francs from a friend.  He repeated, that if I wished to try the chances of the gaming-table, he was not without hopes that, by spending a few crowns in entertaining his associates, I might be, on his recommendation, admitted into the association.  With all my repugnance to cheating, I yielded to dire necessity.

“Lescaut presented me that night as a relation of his own.  He added, that I was the more likely to succeed in my new profession, from wanting the favours of fortune.  However, to show them that I was not quite reduced to the lowest ebb, he said it was my intention to treat them with a supper.  The offer was accepted, and I entertained them en prince.  They talked a good deal about my fashionable appearance and the apparent amiability of my disposition; they said that the best hopes might be entertained of me, because there was something in my countenance that bespoke the gentleman, and no one therefore could have a suspicion of my honesty:  they voted thanks to Lescaut for having introduced so promising a novice, and deputed one of the members to instruct me for some days in the necessary manoeuvres.