"Madame Laîné was telling me about a week ago of some little entertainments that one of her friends gives every Sunday. I have sought and found, this evening, a way to attend one of these reunions in company with my governess, but ostensibly as a relative of hers, a young orphan who supports herself by her daily toil, like all the other young people who compose the company.
"There no one will know me. What they really think of me will be shown conclusively by the reception given me. The rare perfections with which I am endowed—according to those around me—have had such a sudden and irresistible effect, they say, upon them, and upon the husbands they have picked out for me,—in short, I produce such a sensation at all the assemblies I frequent, that I am anxious to see if I shall prove equally irresistible to the young people at Madame Herbaut's modest entertainment.
"If I do not, I shall know that I have been basely deceived, and there is little danger that I shall ever endanger my future happiness by fixing my choice upon either of the suitors attracted solely by cupidity.
"I am also resolved to find some means of escaping the snares that seem to surround me on every side.
"What means I do not know. Alas! alone in the world as I am, in whom can I confide? In whom can I trust?
"In God and in you, my mother. I shall obey all the inspirations you send me, as I obey this, for, strange as it may appear, I cannot divest myself of the idea that this did come from you. At all events, it had its origin in a wise and noble sentiment,—a desire to know the truth, however disheartening it may be.
"So to-morrow, I am resolved to attend the reunion at Madame Herbaut's house."
So the next day, Mlle. de Beaumesnil, having feigned indisposition, and having escaped the assiduous attentions of the Rochaiguës by a firm refusal to admit them to her room, left the house soon after nightfall, accompanied by her governess, and, taking a cab some distance from the mansion, was driven to Madame Herbaut's house.
END OF VOLUME I.