nough to send us home, and
to spare us the disgrace of a prosecution.

"Years ago, when I was young, I made Monsieur Beaurain's acquaintance on
Sunday in this neighborhood. He was employed in a draper's shop, and I
was a young lady in a ready made clothing establishment. I remember it,
as if it were yesterday. I used to come and spend Sundays here
occasionally with a friend of mine, Rose Leveque, with whom I lived in
the Rue Pigalle, and Rose had a sweetheart, while I had not. He used to
bring us here, and one Saturday, he told me, laughing, that he should
bring a friend with him the next day. I quite understood what he meant,
but I replied that it would be no good; for I was virtuous, Monsieur.

"The next day we met Monsieur Beaurain at the railway station, and in
those days he was good-looking, but I had made up my mind not to yield
to him, and I did not yield. Well, we arrived at Bezons. It was a lovely
day, the sort of day that tickles your heart. When it is fine, even now,
just as it used to be formerly, I grow quite foolish, and when I am in
the country I utterly lose my head. The verdure, the swallows flying so
swiftly, the smell of the grass, the scarlet poppies, the daisies, all
that makes me quite excited! It is like champagne when one is not used
to it!

"Well, it was lovely weather, warm and bright, and it seemed to
penetrate into your body by your eyes when you looked, and by your mouth
when you breathed. Rose and Simon hugged and kissed each other every
minute, and that gave me something to look at! Monsieur Beaurain and I
walked behind them, without speaking much, for when people do not know
each other they do not find anything to talk about. He looked timid, and
I liked to see his embarrassment. At last we got to the little wood; it
was as cool as in a bath there, and we all four sat down. Rose and her
lover joked me because I looked rather stern, but you will understand
that could not be otherwise. And then they began to kiss and hug again,
without putting any more restraint upon themselves than if we had not
been there; and then they whispered together, and then got up and went
off among the trees, without saying a word. You may fancy what I looked
like, alone with this young fellow, whom I saw for the first time. I
felt so confused at seeing them go that it gave me courage and I began
to talk. I asked him what his business was, and he said he was a linen
draper's assistant, as I told you just now. W