ciates I was about to forego. My mind being thus relieved from
all regret at my departure, I now suffered it to look forward to the
advantages of my return to England. My love of excitement and variety
made an election, in which I was to have both the importance of the
contest and the certainty of the success, a very agreeable object of
anticipation.

I was also by this time wearied with my attendance upon women, and
eager to exchange it for the ordinary objects of ambition to men; and my
vanity whispered that my success in the one was no unfavourable omen of
my prosperity in the other. On my return to England, with a new scene
and a new motive for conduct, I resolved that I would commence a
different character to that I had hitherto assumed. How far I kept this
resolution the various events hereafter to be shown, will testify. For
myself, I felt that I was now about to enter a more crowded scene upon
a more elevated ascent; and my previous experience of human nature
was sufficient to convince me that my safety required a more continual
circumspection, and my success a more dignified bearing.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Je noterai cela, Madame, dans mon livre.--Moliere.

I am not one of those persons who are many days in deciding what may be
effected in one. "On the third day from this," said I to Bedos, "at half
past nine in the morning, I shall leave Paris for England."

"Oh, my poor wife!" said the valet, "she will break her heart if I leave
her."

"Then stay," said I. Bedos shrugged his shoulders.

"I prefer being with Monsieur to all things."

"What, even to your wife?" The courteous rascal placed his hand to his
heart and bowed. "You shall not suffer by your fidelity--you shall take
your wife with you."

The conjugal valet's countenance fell. "No," he said, "no; he could not
take advantage of Monsieur's generosity."

"I insist upon it--not another word."

"I beg a thousand pardons of Monsieur; but--but my wife is very ill, and
unable to travel."

"Then, in that case, so excellent a husband cannot think of leaving a
sick and destitute wife."

"Poverty has no law; if I consulted my heart and stayed, I should
starve, et il faut vivre."

"Je n'en vois pas la necessite," replied I, as I got into my carriage.
That repartee, by the way, I cannot claim as my own; it is the very
unanswerable answer of a judge to an expostulating thief.

I made the round of reciprocal regrets, according to the orthodox
formul