I was their screen as we sat in front of the fire, and I gazed freely on charms which they could no longer conceal. I told them that we must not think of going till the punch was finished, and they agreed, saying, in high glee, that it would be a great sin to leave so good a thing behind.
I then presumed so far as to tell them that they had beautiful legs, and that I should be puzzled to assign the prize between them. This made them gayer than ever, for they had not noticed that their unlaced bodices and short petticoats let me see almost everything.
After drinking our punch to the dregs, we remained talking for half an hour, while I congratulated myself on my self-restraint. Just as we were going I asked them if they had any grounds of complaint against me.
Armelline replied that if I would adopt her as my daughter she was ready to follow me to the end of the world. "Then you are not afraid of my turning you from the path of duty?"
"No, I feel quite safe with you."
"And what do you say, dear Emilie?"
"I shall love you too, when you do for me what the superioress will tell you to-morrow."
"I will do anything, but I shan't come to speak to her till the evening, for it is three o'clock now."
They laughed all the louder, exclaiming,--
"What will the mother say?"
I paid the bill, gave something to the waiter, and took them back to the convent, where the porteress seemed well enough pleased with the new rules when she saw two sequins in her palm.
It was too late to see the superioress, so I drove home after rewarding the coachman and the lackey.
Margarita was ready to scratch my eyes out if I could not prove my fidelity, but I satisfied her by quenching on her the fires Armelline and the punch had kindled. I told her I had been kept by a gaming party, and she asked no more questions.
The next day I amused the princess and the cardinal by a circumstantial account of what had happened.
"You missed your opportunity," said the princess.
"I don't think so," said the cardinal, "I believe, on the contrary, that he has made his victory more sure for another time."
In the evening, I went to the convent where the superioress gave me her warmest welcome. She complimented me on having amused myself with the two girls till three o'clock in the morning without doing anything wrong.
They had told her how we had eaten the oysters, and she said it was an amusing idea. I admired her candour, simplicity, or philosophy, whichever you like to call it.
After these preliminaries, she told me that I could make Emilie happy by obtaining, through the influence of the princess, a dispensation to marry without the publication of banns a merchant of Civita Vecchia, who would have married her long ago only that there was a woman who pretended to have claims upon him. If banns were published this woman would institute a suit which might go on forever.
"If you do this," she concluded, "you will have the merit of making Emilie happy."
I took down the man's name, and promised to do my best with the princess.
"Are you still determined to cure yourself of your love for Armelline?"
"Yes, but I shall not begin the cure till Lent."
"I congratulate you; the carnival is unusually long this year."
The next day I spoke of the matter to the princess. The first requisite was a certificate from the Bishop of Civita Vecchia, stating that the man was free to marry. The cardinal said that the man must come to Rome, and that the affair could be managed if he could bring forward two good witnesses who would swear that he was unmarried.
I told the superioress what the cardinal said, and she wrote to the merchant, and a few days after I saw him talking to the superioress and Emilie through the grating.
He commended himself to my protection, and said that before he married he wanted to be sure of having six hundred crowns.
The convent would give him four hundred crowns, so we should have to obtain a grant of two hundred more.
I succeeded in getting the grant, but I first contrived to have another supper with Armelline, who asked me every morning when I was going to take her to the comic opera. I said I was afraid of turning her astray from the path of duty, but she replied that experience had taught her to dread me no longer.