is one of your intimate friends, and this is not the first
proposal he has taken to you. I could not address you directly, as I know
your arts only too well."

"I shall not pay any attention to your abuse of my self; I will only
remind you of what I said 'that neither money nor violence were of any
use,' and that your only way was to make me in love with you by gentle
means. Shew me where I have broken my word! It is you that have foresworn
yourself in coming into my bath-room, and in sending such a brutal
message to my mother. No one but a rascal like Goudar would have dared to
take such a message."

"Goudar a rascal, is he? Well, he is your best friend. You know he is in
love with you, and that he only got you for the ambassador in the hope of
enjoying you himself. The document in his possession proves that you have
behaved badly towards him. You are in his debt, discharge it, and then
call him a rascal if you have the conscience to do so. You need not
trouble to weep, for I knew the source of those tears; it is defiled."

"You know nothing of it. I love you, and it is hard to have you treat me
so."

"You love me? You have not taken the best way to prove it!"

"As good a way as yours. You have behaved to me as if I were the vilest
of prostitutes, and yesterday you seemed to think I was a brute beast,
the slave of my mother. You should have written to me in person, and
without the intervention of so vile an agent; I should have replied in
the same way, and you need not have been afraid that you would be
deceived."

"Supposing I had written, what would your answer have been?"

"I should have put all money matters out of question. I should have
promised to content you on the condition that you would come and court me
for a fortnight without demanding the slightest favour. We should have
lived a pleasant life; we should have gone to the theatre and to the
parks. I should have become madly in love with you. Then I should have
given myself up to you for love, and nothing but love. I am ashamed to
say that hitherto I have only given myself out of mere complaisance.
Unhappy woman that I am! but I think nature meant me to love, and I
thought when I saw you that my happy star had sent you to England that I
might know the bliss of true affection. Instead of this you have only
made me unhappy. You are the first man that has seen me weep; you have
troubled my peace at home, for my mother shall never have the sum you
promi