a still greater
interest in you."

So saying I let my mouth meet hers, and I felt a kiss escape as if
involuntarily from her lips. It ran like fire through my veins, my brain
began to whirl, and I saw that unless I took to a speedy flight I should
lose all her confidence. I therefore left her, calling her "dear
daughter" as I bade her farewell.

It poured with rain, and I got soaked through before I reached my
lodging. This was a bath well fitted to diminish the ardour of my
passion, but it made me very late in rising the next morning.

I took out the two portraits of M---- M----, one in a nun's dress, and the
other nude, as Venus. I felt sure they would be of service to me with the
nun.

I did not find the fair Zeroli in her room, so I went to the fountain,
where she reproached me with a tenderness I assessed at its proper value,
and our quarrel was made up in the course of our walk. When dinner was
over the Marquis the Prie made a bank, but as he only put down a hundred
louis I guessed that he wanted to win a lot and lose a little. I put down
also a hundred louis, and he said that it would be better sport if I did
not stake my money on one card only. I replied that I would stake a louis
on each of the thirteen.

"You will lose."

"We will see. Here is my hand on the table, and I stake a louis on each
of the thirteen cards."

According to the laws of probability, I should certainly have lost, but
fate decided otherwise and I won eighty louis. At eight o'clock I bowed
to the company, and I went as usual to the place where my new love dwelt.
I found the invalid ravishing. She said she had had a little fever, which
the country-woman pronounced to be milk fever, and that she would be
quite well and ready to get up by the next day. As I stretched out my
hand to lift the coverlet; she seized it and covered it with kisses,
telling me that she felt as if she must give me that mark of her filial
affection. She was twenty-one, and I was thirty-five. A nice daughter for
a man like me! My feelings for her were not at all of a fatherly
character. Nevertheless, I told her that her confidence in me, as shewn
by her seeing me in bed, increased my affection for her, and that I
should be grieved if I found her dressed in her nun's clothes next day.

"Then I will stop in bed," said she; "and indeed I shall be very glad to
do so, as I experience great discomfort from the heat of my woollen
habit; but I think I should please you