g, excited and impatient, for Clotilde's return.
The moment she made her appearance his heart began to beat violently.
She was very warm, for an August sun was blazing in the sky, and she
laid aside her things quickly, pleased with her walk, telling him,
laughing, of the good bargain Martine had made--two pigeons for eighteen
sous. While she was speaking he pretended to notice something on her
neck.

"Why, what have you on your neck? Let me see."

He had the necklace in his hand, and he succeeded in putting it around
her neck, while feigning to pass his fingers over it, to assure himself
that there was nothing there. But she resisted, saying gaily:

"Don't! There is nothing on my neck. Here, what are you doing? What have
you in your hand that is tickling me?"

He caught hold of her, and drew her before the long mirror, in which she
had a full view of herself. On her neck the slender chain showed like a
thread of gold, and the seven pearls, like seven milky stars, shone with
soft luster against her satin skin. She looked charmingly childlike.
Suddenly she gave a delighted laugh, like the cooing of a dove swelling
out its throat proudly.

"Oh, master, master, how good you are! Do you think of nothing but me,
then? How happy you make me!"

And the joy which shone in her eyes, the joy of the woman and the lover,
happy to be beautiful and to be adored, recompensed him divinely for his
folly.

She drew back her head, radiant, and held up her mouth to him. He bent
over and kissed her.

"Are you happy?"

"Oh, yes, master, happy, happy! Pearls are so sweet, so pure! And these
are so becoming to me!"

For an instant longer she admired herself in the glass, innocently vain
of her fair flower-like skin, under the nacre drops of the pearls. Then,
yielding to a desire to show herself, hearing the servant moving about
outside, she ran out, crying:

"Martine, Martine! See what master has just given me! Say, am I not
beautiful!"

But all at once, seeing the old maid's severe face, that had suddenly
turned an ashen hue, she became confused, and all her pleasure was
spoiled. Perhaps she had a consciousness of the jealous pang which
her brilliant youth caused this poor creature, worn out in the dumb
resignation of her servitude, in adoration of her master. This, however,
was only a momentary feeling, unconscious in the one, hardly suspected
by the other, and what remained was the evident disapprobation of the
economical se