"Nothing at all; it will fall on me."

"But I should not like to involve you in a dispute which might be
prejudicial to your interests."

"Not at all; the more I provoke him, the better he loves me, and I will
make him pay dearly when he asks me to make it up."

"Then you don't love him?"

"Yes, to ruin him; but he is so rich that there doesn't seem much hope of
my ever doing that."

Before me I saw a woman as beautiful as Venus and as degraded as Lucifer;
a woman most surely born to be the ruin of anyone who had the misfortune
to fall in love with her. I had known women of similar character, but
never one so dangerous as she.

I determined to make some money out of her if I could.

She called for cards, and asked me to play with her at a game called
primiera. It is a game of chance, but of so complicated a nature that the
best player always wins. In a quarter of an hour I found that I was the
better player, but she had such luck that at the end of the game I had
lost twenty pistoles, which I paid on the spot. She took the money,
promising to give me my revenge.

We had supper, and then we committed all the wantonness she wished and I
was capable of performing, for with me the age of miracles was past.