r hand touched mine, and she pressed it, and I gently squeezed
her waist with a trembling, and gradually firmer, grasp. She did not move
now, and I touched her cheek with my lips, and suddenly without seeking
them my lips met hers. It was a long, long kiss, and it would have lasted
longer still if I had not heard a hm! hm! just behind me, at which she
made her escape through the bushes, and turning round I saw Rivet coming
toward me, and, standing in the middle of the path, he said without even
smiling: 'So that is the way you settle the affair of that pig of a
Morin.' And I replied conceitedly: 'One does what one can, my dear
fellow. But what about the uncle? How have you got on with him? I will
answer for the niece.' 'I have not been so fortunate with him,' he
replied.

"Whereupon I took his arm and we went indoors."
III

"Dinner made me lose my head altogether. I sat beside her, and my hand
continually met hers under the tablecloth, my foot touched hers and our
glances met.

"After dinner we took a walk by moonlight, and I whispered all the tender
things I could think of to her. I held her close to me, kissed her every
moment, while her uncle and Rivet were arguing as they walked in front of
us. They went in, and soon a messenger brought a telegram from her aunt,
saying that she would not return until the next morning at seven o'clock
by the first train.

"'Very well, Henriette,' her uncle said, 'go and show the gentlemen their
rooms.' She showed Rivet his first, and he whispered to me: 'There was no
danger of her taking us into yours first.' Then she took me to my room,
and as soon as she was alone with me I took her in my arms again and
tried to arouse her emotion, but when she saw the danger she escaped out
of the room, and I retired very much put out and excited and feeling
rather foolish, for I knew that I should not sleep much, and I was
wondering how I could have committed such a mistake, when there was a
gentle knock at my door, and on my asking who was there a low voice
replied: 'I.'

"I dressed myself quickly and opened the door, and she came in. 'I forgot
to ask you what you take in the morning,' she said; 'chocolate, tea or
coffee?' I put my arms round her impetuously and said, devouring her with
kisses: 'I will take--I will take--'

"But she freed herself from my arms, blew out my candle and disappeared
and left me alone in the dark, furious, trying to find some matches, and
not able to do so. At