dance as well as a professional dancer, and that she was not going to
dance badly to please me. I was so enraged with her impudence, that I
would have cast her off that instant if it had been possible; but as it
was not, I determined that her punishment should lose none of its
sharpness by waiting; and whether it be a vice or a virtue, the desire of
revenge is never extinguished in my heart till it is satisfied.

The day after the ball Madame d'Urfe presented her with a casket
containing a beautiful watch set with brilliants, a pair of diamond
ear-rings, and a ring containing a ruby of fifteen carats. The whole was
worth sixty thousand francs. I took possession of it to prevent her going
off without my leave.

In the meanwhile I amused myself with play and making bad acquaintances.
The worst of all was a French officer, named d'Ache, who had a pretty
wife and a daughter prettier still. Before long the daughter had taken
possession of the heart which the Corticelli had lost, but as soon as
Madame d'Ache saw that I preferred her daughter to herself she refused to
receive me at her house.

I had lent d'Ache ten Louis, and I consequently felt myself entitled to
complain of his wife's conduct; but he answered rudely that as I only
went to the house after his daughter, his wife was quite right; that he
intended his daughter to make a good match, and that if my intentions
were honourable I had only to speak to the mother. His manner was still
more offensive than his words, and I felt enraged, but knowing the brutal
drunken characteristics of the man, and that he was always ready to draw
cold steel for a yes or a no, I was silent and resolved to forget the
girl, not caring to become involved with a man like her father.