CHAPTER X
What lost a world, and bade a hero fly?
The timid tear in Cleopatra’s eye.
Yet be the soft triumvir’s fault forgiven,
By this, how many lose—not earth—but heaven!
Consign their souls to man’s eternal foe,
And seal their own, to spare some wanton’s, woe!
BYRON.
I soon returned to Manon; and to prevent the servants from having any suspicion, I told her in their hearing, that she need not expect M. G—— M—— to supper; that he was most reluctantly occupied with business which detained him, and that he had commissioned me to come and make his excuses, and to fill his place at the supper table; which, in the company of so beautiful a lady, I could not but consider a very high honour. She seconded me with her usual adroitness. We sat down to supper. I put on the most serious air
