errace crossed by the two bars of shadows thrown by
the secular cypresses. The sun had already warmed the old flagstones
there, and the wide horizon stretched out under a dazzling sky.

One morning when Clotilde had been running, she returned to the house in
such exuberant spirits and so full of pleasant excitement that she went
up to the workroom without taking off either her garden hat or the lace
scarf which she had tied around her neck.

"Oh," she said, "I am so warm! And how stupid I am, not to have taken
off my things downstairs. I will go down again at once."

She had thrown the scarf on a chair on entering.

But her feverish fingers became impatient when she tried to untie the
strings of her large straw hat.

"There, now! I have fastened the knot. I cannot undo it, and you must
come to my assistance."

Pascal, happy and excited too by the pleasure of the walk, rejoiced to
see her so beautiful and so merry. He went over and stood in front of
her.

"Wait; hold up your chin. Oh, if you keep moving like that, how do you
suppose I can do it?"

She laughed aloud. He could see the laughter swelling her throat, like
a wave of sound. His fingers became entangled under her chin, that
delicious part of the throat whose warm satin he involuntarily touched.
She had on a gown cut sloping in the neck, and through the opening he
inhaled all the living perfume of the woman, the pure fragrance of her
youth, warmed by the sunshine. All at once a vertigo seized him and he
thought he was going to faint.

"No, no! I cannot do it," he said, "unless you keep still!"

The blood throbbed in his temples, and his fingers trembled, while she
leaned further back, unconsciously offering the temptation of her fresh
girlish beauty. It was the vision of royal youth, the bright eyes,
the healthy lips, the blooming cheeks, above all, the delicate neck,
satin-smooth and round, shaded on the back by down. And she seemed
to him so delicately graceful, with her slender throat, in her divine
bloom!

"There, it is done!" she cried.

Without knowing how, he had untied the strings. The room whirled round,
and then he saw her again, bareheaded now, with her starlike face,
shaking back her golden curls laughingly. Then he was seized with a fear
that he would catch her in his arms and press mad kisses on her bare
neck, and arms, and throat. And he fled from the room, taking with him
the hat, which he had kept in his hand, saying:

"I will ha