Volume IV Part 67 (1/2)
”Yes, I do confess it, and I beg your pardon But tell me how I should set to work to ask the pastor to dinner”
”There will be no difficulty Just call on him and ask hi him to ask my mother and myself”
”Why your mother?”
”Because he has been in love with her these twenty years, and loves her still”
”And where shall I give this dinner?”
”Is not M Tronchin your banker?”
”Yes”
”He has a nice pleasure house on the lake; ask hihted to do so But don't tell the syndic or his three friends anything about it; they can hear of it afterwards”
”But do you think your learned cousin will be glad to be in lad, you ed by to to Geneva, and the party will take place two or three days later”
The syndic ca
After supper the ladies went to bed as before, and I ith the eldest girl while the syndic visited the two younger ones I knew that it would be of no use to try to do anything with Helen, so I contented ht and passed on to the next room I found them in a deep sleep, and the syndic seemed visibly bored He did not look more cheerful when I told him that I had had no success with Helen
”I see,” said he, ”that I shall waste ive her up”
”I think that's the best thing you could do,” I replied, ”for a uishes after a wo or full of caprice, makes himself her dupe Bliss should be neither too easy nor too hard to be won”
The next day we returned to Geneva, and M Tronchin seee me The pastor accepted my invitation, and said I was sure to be charmed with Helen's mother It was easy to see that the worthy man cherished a tenderness for her, and if she responded at all it would be all the better forHelen and her three friends at the house on the lake, but an express summoned me to Lausanne Madame Lebel, my old housekeeper, invited me to sup with her and her husband
She wrote that she had made her husband proot n everything to give her the pleasure of seeing me She notified the hour at which she would be at her mother's house
Madame Lebel was one of the ten or twelve woreatest affection She had all the qualities to ood wife, if it had been my fate to experience such felicity But perhaps I did well not to tie h now my independence is another name for slavery But if I had married a woman of tact, ould have ruled me unawares to myself, I should have taken care oflonely and penniless in ressions on the past which cannot be recalled, and since my recollections rets
I calculated that if I started directly I should get to Lausanne an hour before Madaive her this proof of h I loved this woman well, I was then occupied with another passion, and no voluptuous thoughther My esteeh to holdwould have induced me to disturb the happiness of thishied me to start for Lausanne, but that I should have the pleasure of supping with hi day
I knocked at Madaer Her surprise was extre to ave her two louis to get us a good supper
At seven o'clock, Madahteen nized aswas a happy one indeed; we spent ten hours at table, and mirth and joy prevailed At day-break she started for Soleure, where Lebel had business M de Chavigni had desired to be remembered most affectionately to me Lebel assured me that the ambassador was extreiven such a woman up to him I could easily see that he was a happy husband, and that his as as happy as he
My dear housekeeper talked to me about my son She said that nobody suspected the truth, but that neither she nor Lebel (who had faithfully kept his proe for the two reed upon) had any doubts