any, circumlocution if she
was willing that we should content ourselves with one bed.

At this invitation her face fell, and she replied, with an air of
submission which kills desire,--

"Alas! you can do what you like. If liberty is a precious thing, it is
most precious of all in love."

"There is no need for this disobedience. You have inspired me with a
tender passion, but if you don't share my feelings my love for you shall
be stifled at its birth. There are two beds here, as you see; you can
choose which one you will sleep in."

"Then I will sleep in that one, but I shall be very sorry if you are not
so kind to me in the future as you have been in the past."

"Don't be afraid. You shall not find me un worthy of your esteem. Good
night; we shall be good friends."

Early the next morning I sent the countess's letter to the bishop, and an
hour afterwards, as I was at breakfast, an old priest came to ask me and
the lady with me to dine with my lord. The countess's letter did not say
anything about a lady, but the prelate, who was a true Spaniard and very
polite, felt that as I could not leave my real or false niece alone in
the inn I should not have accepted the invitation if she had not been
asked as well. Probably my lord had heard of the lady through his
footmen, who in Italy are a sort of spies, who entertain their masters
with the scandalous gossip of the place. A bishop wants something more
than his breviary to amuse him now that the apostolic virtues have grown
old-fashioned and out of date; in short, I accepted the invitation,
charging the priest to present my respects to his lordship.

My niece was delightful, and treated me as if I had no right to feel any
resentment for her having preferred her own bed to mine. I was pleased
with her behaviour, for now that my head was cool I felt that she would
have degraded herself if she had acted otherwise. My vanity was not even
wounded, which is so often the case under similar circumstances.
Self-love and prejudice prevent a woman yielding till she has been
assidiously courted, whereas I had asked her to share my bed in an
off-hand manner, as if it were a mere matter of form. However, I should
not have done it unless it had been for the fumes of the champagne and
the Somard, with which we had washed down the delicious supper mine host
had supplied us with. She had been flattered by the bishop's invitation,
but she did not know whether I had accepted for her as w