d otherwise.

Aix is a villainous hole where the mineral waters attract people of
fashion towards the end of the summer--a circumstance of which I was then
ignorant. I dined hastily, wishing to set out immediately for Chamberi,
when in the middle of my repast a crowd of fashionable people burst into
the room. I looked at them without stirring, replying with an inclination
of the head to the bows which some of them made me. I soon discovered
from their conversation that they had all come to take the waters. A
gentleman of a fine presence came up to me and asked if I were going to
Turin; I answered that my way was to Marseilles.

Their dinner was served, and everybody sat down. Among them I noticed
several pleasant-looking ladies, with gentlemen who were either their
husbands or their lovers. I concluded that I might find some amusement
with them, as they all spoke French with that easy tone of good society
which is so attractive, and I felt that I should be inclined to stay
without much pressing, for that day at all events.

I finished my dinner before the company had come to the end of their
first course, and as my coach could not go for another hour I went up to
a pretty woman, and complimented her on the good the waters of Aix seemed
to have done her, for her appetite made all who looked at her feel
hungry.

"I challenge you to prove that you are speaking the truth," said she,
with a smile. I sat down next to her, and she gave me a nice piece of the
roast which I ate as if I had been fasting.

While I was talking with the lady, and eating the morsels she gave me, I
heard a voice saying that I was in the abbe's place, and another voice
replying that the abbe had been gone for half an hour.

"Why has he gone?" asked a third, "he said he was going to stay here for
another week." At this there was some whispering, but the departure of an
abbe had nothing interesting in it for me, and I continued eating and
talking. I told Le Duc, who was standing behind my chair, to get me some
champagne. I offered the lady some, she accepted, and everyone began to
call for champagne. Seeing my neighbour's spirits rising, I proceeded to
make love to her, and asked her if she were always as ready to defy those
who paid their court to her.

"So many of them," she answered, "are not worthy the trouble."

She was pretty and quick-witted, and I took a fancy to her, and wished
for some pretext on which I could put off my departure, and