“Possibly. She rang for me at eleven o’clock this morning and told me to go and ask him what kind of night he had passed. I did so, but seeing his bed had not been slept in I asked him if he had not been to sleep. “‘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.”