lady; and the gentleman was taught to feel that a
never so slightly lengthened compression of the hand female shoots
within us both straight and far and round the corners. There you have
Nature, if you want her naked in her elements, for a text. He loved his
Nataly truly, even fervently, after the twenty years of union; he looked
about at no other woman; it happened only that the touch of one, the
chance warm touch, put to motion the blind forces of our mother so
remarkably surcharging him. But it was without kindling. The lady, the
much cooler person, did nurse a bit of flame. She had a whimsical liking
for the man who enjoyed simple things when commanding the luxuries; and
it became a fascination, by extreme contrast, at the reminder of his
adventurous enterprises in progress while he could so childishly enjoy.
Women who dance with the warrior-winner of battles, and hear him talk
his ball-room trifles to amuse, have similarly a smell of gunpowder to
intoxicate them.

For him, a turn on the deck brought him into new skies. Nataly lay
in the cabin. She used to be where Lady Grace was lying. A sort of
pleadable, transparent, harmless hallucination of the renewal of old
service induced him to refresh and settle the fair semi-slumberer's
pillow, and fix the tarpaulin over her silks and wraps; and bend his
head to the soft mouth murmuring thanks. The women who can dare the nuit
blanche, and under stars; and have a taste for holiday larks after their
thirtieth, are rare; they are precious. Nataly nevertheless was approved
for guarding her throat from the nightwind. And a softer southerly
breath never crossed Channel! The very breeze he had wished for! Luck
was with him.

Nesta sat by the rails of the vessel beside her Louise. Mr. Sowerby in
passing, exchanged a description of printed agreement with her, upon the
beauty of the night--a good neutral topic for the encounter of the sexes
not that he wanted it neutral; it furnished him with a vocabulary. Once
he perceptibly washed his hands of dutiful politeness, in addressing
Mademoiselle de Seilles, likewise upon the beauty of the night; and the
French lady, thinking--too conclusively from the breath on the glass
at the moment, as it is the Gallic habit--that if her dear Nesta must
espouse one of the uninteresting creatures called men in her native
land, it might as well be this as another, agreed that the night was
very beautiful.

'He speaks grammatical French,' Nesta comm