“You might have spared him,” remarked M. D---- R----, “the cutting jest of the confessor killing the false prince.” “You are right, sir, but I thought it would make him laugh as well as it made madam and your excellency. In conversation people generally do not object to a witty jest causing merriment and laughter.” “True; only those who have not wit enough to laugh do not like the jest.” “I bet a hundred sequins that the madman will recover, and that, having the general on his side, he will reap all the advantages of his imposture. I long to see him treated as a prince, and making love to Madame Sagredo.” Hearing the last words, Madame F----, who did not like Madame Sagredo, laughed heartily, and, as we were getting out of the carriage, M. D---- R---- invited me to accompany them upstairs. He was in the habit of spending half an hour alone with her at her own house when they had taken supper together with the general, for her husband never shewed himself. It was the first time that the happy couple admitted a third person to their tete-a-tete. I felt very proud of the compliment thus paid to me, and I thought it might have important results for me. My satisfaction, which I concealed as well as I could, did not prevent me from being very gay and from giving a comic turn to every subject brought forward by the lady or by her lord. We kept up our pleasant trio for four hours; and returned to the mansion of M. D---- R---- only at two o’clock in the morning. It was during that night that Madame F---- and M. D---- R---- really made my acquaintance. Madame F---- told him that she had never laughed so much, and that she had never imagined that a conversation, in appearance so simple, could afford so much pleasure and merriment. On my side, I discovered in her so much wit and cheerfulness, that I became deeply enamoured, and went to bed fully satisfied that, in the future, I could not keep up the show of indifference which I had so far assumed towards her.