be returning to Geneva, and the party will take place two or three
days later."

The syndic came back in due course, and we had a very pleasant evening.
After supper the ladies went to bed as before, and I went with the eldest
girl while the syndic visited the two younger ones. I knew that it would
be of no use to try to do anything with Helen, so I contented myself with
a few kisses, after which I wished them good night and passed on to the
next room. I found them in a deep sleep, and the syndic seemed visibly
bored. He did not look more cheerful when I told him that I had had no
success with Helen.

"I see," said he, "that I shall waste my time with the little fool. I
think I shall give her up."

"I think that's the best thing you could do," I replied, "for a man who
languishes after a woman who is either devoid of feeling or full of
caprice, makes himself her dupe. Bliss should be neither too easy nor too
hard to be won."

The next day we returned to Geneva, and M. Tronchin seemed delighted to
oblige me. The pastor accepted my invitation, and said I was sure to be
charmed with Helen's mother. It was easy to see that the worthy man
cherished a tenderness for her, and if she responded at all it would be
all the better for my purposes.

I was thinking of supping with the charming Helen and her three friends
at the house on the lake, but an express summoned me to Lausanne. Madame
Lebel, my old housekeeper, invited me to sup with her and her husband.
She wrote that she had made her husband promise to take her to Lausanne
as soon as she got my letter, and she added she was sure that I would
resign everything to give her the pleasure of seeing me. She notified the
hour at which she would be at her mother's house.

Madame Lebel was one of the ten or twelve women for whom in my happy
youth I cherished the greatest affection. She had all the qualities to
make a man a good wife, if it had been my fate to experience such
felicity. But perhaps I did well not to tie myself down with irrevocable
bonds, though now my independence is another name for slavery. But if I
had married a woman of tact, who would have ruled me unawares to myself,
I should have taken care of my fortune and have had children, instead of
being lonely and penniless in my old age.

But I must indulge no longer in digressions on the past which cannot be
recalled, and since my recollections make me happy I should be foolish to
cherish idle regrets.

I ca