urning to M.
D---- R-----, she said,

"M. Casanova pretends that if he had given an account of his meeting with
Yusuf's wife without changing anything everybody would think that I
allowed him to entertain me with indecent stories. I want you to give
your opinion about it. Will you," she added, speaking to me, "be so good
as to relate immediately the adventure in the same words which you have
used when you told me of it?"

"Yes, madam, if you wish me to do so."

Stung to the quick by an indiscretion which, as I did not yet know women
thoroughly, seemed to me without example, I cast all fears of displeasing
to the winds, related the adventure with all the warmth of an impassioned
poet, and without disguising or attenuating in the least the desires
which the charms of the Greek beauty had inspired me with.

"Do you think," said M. D---- R---- to Madame F-----, "that he ought to
have related that adventure before all our friends as he has just related
it to us?"

"If it be wrong for him to tell it in public, it is also wrong to tell it
to me in private."

"You are the only judge of that: yes, if he has displeased you; no, if he
has amused you. As for my own opinion, here it is: He has just now amused
me very much, but he would have greatly displeased me if he had related
the same adventure in public."

"Then," exclaimed Madame F----, "I must request you never to tell me in
private anything that you cannot repeat in public."

"I promise, madam, to act always according to your wishes."

"It being understood," added M. D---- R-----, smiling, "that madam
reserves all rights of repealing that order whenever she may think fit."

I was vexed, but I contrived not to show it. A few minutes more, and we
took leave of Madame F----.

I was beginning to understand that charming woman, and to dread the
ordeal to which she would subject me. But love was stronger than fear,
and, fortified with hope, I had the courage to endure the thorns, so as
to gather the rose at the end of my sufferings. I was particularly
pleased to find that M. D---- R---- was not jealous of me, even when she
seemed to dare him to it. This was a point of the greatest importance.

A few days afterwards, as I was entertaining her on various subjects, she
remarked how unfortunate it had been for me to enter the lazzaretto at
Ancona without any money.

"In spite of my distress," I said, "I fell in love with a young and
beautiful Greek slave, who very near