hear her chatter."

M---- welcomed me most kindly, and congratulated me on my conquest, which
would make my country house a paradise. I joined in the jest, of course,
with the more ease that his charming wife, though I could see that she
suspected the truth, added her congratulations to those of her husband;
but I soon changed the course of their friendly mirth by telling them the
circumstances of the case. They were indignant enough then, and the
husband said that if she had really quartered herself on me in that
fashion, all I had to do was to get an injunction from the courts
forbidding her to put her foot within my doors.

"I don't want to do that," said I, "as besides publicly disgracing her I
should be skewing my own weakness, and proclaiming that I was not the
master in my own house, and that I could not prevent her establishing
herself with me."

"I think so, too," said the wife, "and I am glad you gave way to her.
That shews how polite you are, and I shall go and call on her to
congratulate her on the welcome she got, as she told me that her plans
had succeeded."

Here the matter ended, and I accepted their invitation to dine with them.
I behaved as a friend, but with that subtle politeness which takes away
all ground for suspicion; accordingly, the husband felt no alarm. My
charmer found the opportunity to tell me that I had done wisely in
yielding to the ill-timed demand of that harpy, and that as soon as M. de
Chauvelin, whom they were expecting, had gone away again, I could ask her
husband to spend a few days with me, and that she would doubtless come
too.

"Your door-keeper's wife," she added, "was my nurse. I have been kind to
her, and when necessary I can write to you by her without running any
risk."

After calling on two Italian Jesuits who were passing through Soleure,
and inviting them to dine with me on the following day, I returned home
where the good Dubois amused me till midnight by philosophical
discussions. She admired Locke; and maintained that the faculty of
thought was not a proof of the existence of spirit in us, as it was in
the power of God to endow matter with the capacity for thought; I was
unable to controvert this position. She made me laugh by saying that
there was a great difference between thinking and reasoning, and I had
the courage to say,--

"I think you would reason well if you let yourself be persuaded to sleep
with me, and you think you reason well in refusing to be