o Paris. No one came to see us,
except Prudence and Julie Duprat, of whom I have spoken to you, and to
whom Marguerite was afterward to give the touching narrative that I have
there.

I passed whole days at the feet of my mistress. We opened the windows
upon the garden, and, as we watched the summer ripening in its flowers
and under the shadow of the trees, we breathed together that true life
which neither Marguerite nor I had ever known before.

Her delight in the smallest things was like that of a child. There were
days when she ran in the garden, like a child of ten, after a butterfly
or a dragon-fly. This courtesan who had cost more money in bouquets than
would have kept a whole family in comfort, would sometimes sit on the
grass for an hour, examining the simple flower whose name she bore.

It was at this time that she read Manon Lescaut, over and over again.
I found her several times making notes in the book, and she always
declared that when a woman loves, she can not do as Manon did.

The duke wrote to her two or three times. She recognised the writing and
gave me the letters without reading them. Sometimes the terms of these
letters brought tears to my eyes. He had imagined that by closing his
purse to Marguerite, he would bring her back to him; but when he had
perceived the uselessness of these means, he could hold out no longer;
he wrote and asked that he might see her again, as before, no matter on
what conditions.

I read these urgent and repeated letters, and tore them in pieces,
without telling Marguerite what they contained and without advising her
to see the old man again, though I was half inclined to, so much did I
pity him, but I was afraid lest, if I so advised her she should think
that I wished the duke, not merely to come and see her again, but to
take over the expenses of the house; I feared, above all, that she might
think me capable of shirking the responsibilities of every consequence
to which her love for me might lead her.

It thus came about that the duke, receiving no reply, ceased to write,
and that Marguerite and I continued to live together without giving a
thought to the future.

Chapter 18

It would be difficult to give you all the details of our new life. It
was made up of a series of little childish events, charming for us but
insignificant to any one else. You know what it is to be in love with
a woman, you know how it cuts short the days, and with what loving
listles