So saying I let my mouth meet hers, and I felt a kiss escape as if
involuntarily from her lips. It ran like fire through my veins, my brain
began to whirl, and I saw that unless I took to a speedy flight I should
lose all her confidence. I therefore left her, calling her "dear
daughter" as I bade her farewell.

It poured with rain, and I got soaked through before I reached my
lodging. This was a bath well fitted to diminish the ardour of my
passion, but it made me very late in rising the next morning.

I took out the two portraits of M---- M----, one in a nun's dress, and the
other nude, as Venus. I felt sure they would be of service to me with the
nun.

I did not find the fair Zeroli in her room, so I went to the fountain,
where she reproached me with a tenderness I assessed at its proper value,
and our quarrel was made up in the course of our walk. When dinner was
over the Marquis the Prie made a bank, but as he only put down a hundred
louis I guessed that he wanted to win a lot and lose a little. I put down
also a hundred louis, and he said that it would be better sport if I did
not stake my money on one card only. I replied that I would stake a louis
on each of the thirteen.

"You will lose."

"We will see. Here is my hand on the table, and I stake a louis on each
of the thirteen cards."

According to the laws of probability, I should certainly have lost, but
fate decided otherwise and I won eighty louis. At eight o'clock I bowed