still just then than in the most impassioned moments of the waking day.
In her unconstrained grace, as she lay, so full of believing trust,
the adorable attractions of childhood were added to the enchantments of
love.

Even the most unaffected women still obey certain social conventions,
which restrain the free expansion of the soul within them during their
waking hours; but slumber seems to give them back the spontaneity of
life which makes infancy lovely. Pauline blushed for nothing; she was
like one of those beloved and heavenly beings, in whom reason has not
yet put motives into their actions and mystery into their glances.
Her profile stood out in sharp relief against the fine cambric of the
pillows; there was a certain sprightliness about her loose hair in
confusion, mingled with the deep lace ruffles; but she was sleeping in
happiness, her long lashes were tightly pressed against her cheeks, as
if to secure her eyes from too strong a light, or to aid an effort of
her soul to recollect and to hold fast a bliss that had been perfect but
fleeting. Her tiny pink and white ear, framed by a lock of her hair and
outlined by a wrapping of Mechlin lace, would have made an artist, a
painter, an old man, wildly in love, and would perhaps have restored a
madman to his senses.

Is it not an ineffable bliss to behold the woman that you love,
sleeping, smiling in a peaceful dream beneath your protection, loving
you even in dreams, even at the point where the individual seems to
cease to exist, offering to you yet the mute lips that speak to you in
slumber of the latest kiss? Is it not indescribable happiness to see
a trusting woman, half-clad, but wrapped round in her love as by a
cloak--modesty in the midst of dishevelment--to see admiringly her
scattered clothing, the silken stocking hastily put off to please you
last evening, the unclasped girdle that implies a boundless faith in
you. A whole romance lies there in that girdle; the woman that it
used to protect exists no longer; she is yours, she has become _you_;
henceforward any betrayal of her is a blow dealt at yourself.

In this softened mood Raphael's eyes wandered over the room, now filled
with memories and love, and where the very daylight seemed to take
delightful hues. Then he turned his gaze at last upon the outlines of
the woman's form, upon youth and purity, and love that even now had no
thought that was not for him alone, above all things, and longed to live