This day, to conjure you to
believe his heart is incapable of being influenced by any other charms,
and whatever he makes shew of to Melanthe, his heart is devoted wholly
to you, - begs you to permit him to entertain you without the presence of
that lady, the means of which he will take care to contrive; and charged
me to assure you, that there is no sacrifice so great, but he will
readily offer it to convince you of the sincerity of his attachment.
This, madame, added he, is the unpleasing task my promise bound me to
perform, and which I have acquitted myself of with the same pain that
man would do who, by some strange caprice of fate, was constrained to
throw into the sea the sum of all his hopes.
The indignation which filled the virtuous foul of Louisa, while he was
giving her this detail of the count's presumption, falsehood, and
ingratitude, prevented her from giving much attention to the apology
with which he concluded. Never, since the behaviour of mr. B - - n at
mrs. C - g - 's, had she met with any thing that she thought so much
merited her resentment: - so great was her disdain she had not words to
express it, but by some tears, which the rising passion forced from her
eyes: - Heaven! cried she, which of my actions has drawn on me this
unworthy treatment? - This was all she was able to utter, while she
walked backward and forward in the room endeavouring to compose herself,
and form some answer befitting of the message.
Monsieur du Plessis looked on her all this while with admiration: all
that seemed lovely in her, when he knew no more of her than that she was
young and beautiful, was now heightened in his eyes almost to divine, by
that virtuous pride which shewed him some part of her more charming
mind. What he extremely liked before, he now almost adored; and having,
by the loose manner in which the count had mentioned these two English
ladies, imagined them women of not over-rigid principles, now finding
his mistake, at least as concerning one of them, was so much ashamed and
angry with himself for having been the cause of that disorder he was
witness of, that he for some moments was equally at a loss to appease,
as she who felt was to express it.
But being the first that recovered presence of mind; madame, I beseech
you, said he, involve not the innocent with the guilty: - I acknowledge
you have reason to resent the boldness of the count; but I am no
otherwise a sharer in his crime than in reporting it; and if you knew
the pain it gave my heart while I complied with the promise I was
unhappily betrayed into, I am sure you would forgive the misdemeanor of
my tongue.
Sir, answered she, I can easily forgive the slight opinion one so much a
stranger to me as yourself may have of me; but monsieur the count has
been a constant visitor to the lady I am with, ever since our arrival at
Venice; and am very certain he never found any thing in my behaviour to
him or any other person, which could justly encourage him to send me
such a message: - a message, indeed, equally affrontive to himself, since
it shews him a composition of arrogance, vanity, perfidy, and every
thing that is contemptible in man. - This, sir, is the reply I send him,
and desire you to tell him withal, that if he persists in giving me any
farther trouble of this nature, I shall let him know my sense of it in
the presence of Melanthe.
Monsieur du Plessis then assured her he would be no less exact in
delivering what she said, than he had been in the observance of his
promise to the other, and conjured her to believe he should do it with
infinite more satisfaction. He then made use of so many arguments to
prove, that a man of honour ought not to falsify his word, tho' given to
an unworthy person, that she was at last won to forgive his having
undertaken to mention any thing to her of the nature he had done.
Indeed, the agitations she had been in were more owing to the vexation
that monsieur du Plessis was the person employed, than that the count
had the boldness to apply to her in this manner; but the submission she
found herself treated with by the former, convincing her that he had
sentiments very different from those the other had entertained of her,
rendered her more easy, and she not only forgave his share in the
business which had brought him there, but also permitted him to repeat
his visits, on condition he never gave her any cause to suspect the mean
opinion the count had of her conduct had any influence on him.
CHAP. XIII.
Louisa finds herself very much embarrassed by Melanthe's imprudent
behaviour. Monsieur du Plessis declares an honourable passion for her:
her sentiments and way of acting on that occasion.
After the departure of monsieur du Plessis, Louisa fell into a serious
consideration of what had passed between them: not all the regard, which
she could not hinder herself from feeling for that young gentleman, nor
the pleasure she took in reflecting on the respect he paid her, made her
unmindful of what she owed Melanthe: the many obligations she had
received from her, and the friendship she had for her in return, made
her think she ought to acquaint her with the baseness of the count de
Bellfleur, in order to prevent an affection which she found she had
already too much indulged from influencing her to grant him any farther
favours; but this she knew was a very critical point to manage, and was
not without some apprehensions, which afterward she experienced were but
too well grounded; that when that lady found herself obliged to hate the
man she took pleasure in loving, she would also hate the woman who was
the innocent occasion of it.
