"We were not able, however, to carry this intention into effect; for, having taken me aside, 'I have been in the greatest embarrassment,' said he to me, 'since I saw you, and that is the cause of my visiting you today. G---- M---- is in love with your mistress: he told me so in confidence; I am his intimate friend, and disposed to do him any service in my power; but I am not less devoted to you; his designs appeared to me unjustifiable, and I expressed my disapprobation of them; I should not have divulged his secret, if he had only intended to use fair and ordinary means for gaining Manon's affections; but he is aware of her capricious disposition; he has learned, God knows how, that her ruling passion is for affluence and pleasure; and, as he is already in possession of a considerable fortune, he declared his intention of tempting her at once with a present of great value, and the offer of an annuity of six thousand francs; if I had in all other points considered you both in an equal light, I should have had perhaps to do more violence to my feelings in betraying him: but a sense of justice as well as of friendship was on your side, and the more so from having been myself the imprudent, though unconscious, cause of his passion in introducing him here. I feel it my duty therefore to avert any evil consequences from the mischief I have inadvertently caused. "I thanked M. de T---- for rendering me so important a service, and confessed to him, in a like spirit of confidence, that Manon's disposition was precisely what G---- M---- had imagined; that is to say, that she was incapable of enduring even the thought of poverty. 'However,' said I to him, 'when it is a mere question of more or less, I do not believe that she would give me up for any other person; I can afford to let her want for nothing, and I have from day to day reason to hope that my fortune will improve; I only dread one thing,' continued I, 'which is, that G---- M---- may take unfair advantage of the knowledge he has of our place of residence, and bring us into trouble by disclosing it.' "M. de T---- assured me that I might be perfectly easy upon that head; that G---- M---- might be capable of a silly passion, but not of an act of baseness; that if he ever could be villain enough for such a thing, he, de T----, would be the first to punish him, and by that means make reparation for the mischief he had occasioned. 'I feel grateful for what you say,' said I, 'but the mischief will have been all done, and the remedy even seems doubtful; the wisest plan therefore will be to quit Chaillot, and go to reside elsewhere.' 'Very true,' said M. de T----, 'but you will not be able to do it quickly enough, for G---- M---- is to be here at noon; he told me so yesterday, and it was that intelligence that made me come so early this morning to inform you of his intentions. You may expect him every moment.'"