ldn't keep it back a minute. It is going on now. I am so
sorry; it is a dreadful pity."

"There is not much harm done, so console yourself."

"How can I? you are quite dead. How can you laugh?"

"At your charming simplicity. You shall see in a moment that your charms
will give me new life which I shall not lose so easily."

"Wonderful! I couldn't have believed it!"

I took off the sheath, and gave her another, which pleased her better, as
it seemed to fit me better, and she laughed for joy as she put it on. She
knew nothing of these wonders. Her thoughts had been bound in chains, and
she could not discover the truth before she knew me; but though she was
scarcely out of Egypt she shewed all the eagerness of an enquiring and
newly emancipated spirit. "But how if the rubbing makes the sheath fall
off?" said she. I explained to her that such an accident could scarcely
happen, and also told her of what material the English made these
articles.

After all this talking, of which my ardour began to weary, we abandoned
ourselves to love, then to sleep, then to love again, and so on
alternately till day-break. As I was leaving, the woman of the house told
us that the painter had asked four louis, and that she had give two louis
to her foster-son. I gave her twelve, and went home, where I slept till
morn, without thinking of breakfasting with the Marquis de Prie, but I
think I should have given him some notice of my inability to come. His
mistress sulked with me all dinner-time, but softened when I allowed
myself to be persuaded into making a bank. However, I found she was
playing for heavy stakes, and I had to check her once or twice, which
made her so cross that she went to hide her ill-temper in a corner of the
hall. However, the marquis won, and I was losing, when the taciturn Duke
of Rosebury, his tutor Smith, and two of his fellow-countrymen, arrived
from Geneva. He came up to me and said, "How do you do?" and without
another word began to play, inviting his companions to follow his
example.

Seeing my bank in the last agony I sent Le Duc to my room for the
cash-box, whence I drew out five rolls of a hundred louis each. The
Marquis de Prie said, coolly, that he wouldn't mind being my partner, and
in the same tone I begged to be excused. He continued punting without
seeming to be offended at my refusal and when I put down the cards and
rose from the table he had won two hundred louis; but all the others had
lost, esp