That supper was the last I ever had in my life with C---- C----. She was
in excellent spirits, but I had made up my mind, and as I paid all my
attentions to M---- M----, C---- C---- imitated my example without
difficulty, and she devoted herself wholly to her new lover.

Foreseeing that we would, a little later, be all of us in each other's
way, I begged M---- M---- to arrange everything so that we could be apart,
and she contrived it marvellously well.

After supper, the ambassador proposed a game of faro, which our beauties
did not know; he called for cards, and placed one hundred Louis on the
table before him; he dealt, and took care to make C---- C---- win the whole
of that sum. It was the best way to make her accept it as pin-money. The
young girl, dazzled by so much gold, and not knowing what to do with it,
asked her friend to take care of it for her until such time as she should
leave the convent to get married.

When the game was over, M---- M---- complained of a headache, and said that
she would go to bed in the alcove: she asked me to come and lull her to
sleep. We thus left the new lovers free to be as gay as they chose. Six
hours afterwards, when the alarum warned us that it was time to part, we
found them asleep in each other's embrace. I had myself passed an amorous
and quiet night, pleased with M---- M----, and with out giving one thought
to C---- C----.




CHAPTER XXII