Let us have no documents, no safeguards, but give yourself up
to me as Rosalie did, and begin to-night without my promising anything.
If you trust in love, you will make him your prisoner. That way will
honour us and our pleasures, and if you like I will consult M. de
Grimaldi on the subject. As to your plan, if it does not injure your
honour, it does small justice to your common sense, and no one but a fool
would agree to it. You could not possibly love the man to whom you make
such a proposal, and as to M. de Grimaldi, far from having anything to do
with it, I am sure he would be indignant at the very idea."

This discourse did not put Veronique out of countenance. She said she did
not love me well enough to give herself to me unconditionally; to which I
replied that I was not sufficiently taken with her charms to buy them at
the price she fixed, and so I left her.

I called Costa, and told him to go and warn the master of the felucca
that I was going the next day, and with this idea I went to bid good-bye
to the marquis, who informed me that he had just been taking Petri to see
Rosalie, who had received him well enough. I told him I was glad to hear
it, and said that I commended to him the care of her happiness, but such
commendations were thrown away.

It is one of the most curious circumstances of my history, that in one
year two women whom I sincerely loved and whom I might have married were
taken from me by two old men, whose affections I had fostered without
wishing to do so. Happily these gentlemen made my mistresses' fortunes,
but on the other hand they did me a still greater service in relieving me
of a tie which I should have found very troublesome in course of time. No
doubt they both saw that my fortune, though great in outward show, rested
on no solid basis, which, as the reader will see, was unhappily too true.
I should be happy if I thought that my errors or rather follies would
serve as a warning to the readers of these Memoirs.

I spent the day in watching the care with which Veronique and Annette
packed up my trunks, for I would not let my two servants help in any way.
Veronique was neither sad nor gay. She looked as if she had made up her
mind, and as if there had never been any differences between us. I was
very glad, for as I no longer cared for her I should have been annoyed to
find that she still cared for me.

We supped in our usual manner, discussing only commonplace topics, but
just as I