the girl's ringlets swept lightly over his
cheek. Their hands met and their breaths mingled. For an instant
Evariste tasted an ecstatic bliss, but to feel Elodie's lips so close to
his own filled him with fear, and dreading to alarm her modesty, he drew
back quickly.

The _citoyenne_ Blaise was in love with Evariste Gamelin; she thought
his great ardent eyes superb no less than the fine oval of his pale
face, and his abundant black locks, parted above the brow and falling
in showers about his shoulders; his gravity of demeanour, his cold
reserve, his severe manner and uncompromising speech which never
condescended to flattery, were equally to her liking. She was in love,
and therefore believed him possessed of supreme artistic genius that
would one day blossom forth in incomparable masterpieces and make his
name world-famous,--and she loved him the better for the belief. The
_citoyenne_ Blaise was no prude on the score of masculine purity and her
scruples were not offended because a man should satisfy his passions and
follow his own tastes and caprices; she loved Evariste, who was
virtuous; she did not love him because he was virtuous, albeit she
appreciated the advantage of his being so in that she had no cause for
jealousy or suspicion or any fear of rivals in his affections.

Nevertheless, for the time being, she deemed his reserve a little
overdone. If Racine's "Aricie," who loved "Hippolyte," admired the
youthful hero's untameable virtue, it was with the hope of winning a
victory over it, and she would quickly have bewailed a sternness of
moral fibre that had refused to be softened for her sake. At the first
opportunity she more than half declared her passion to constrain him to
speak out himself. Like her prototype the tender-hearted "Aricie," the
_citoyenne_ Blaise was much inclined to think that in love the woman is
bound to make the advances. "The fondest hearts," she told herself, "are
the most fearful; they need help and encouragement. Besides, they are so
simple a woman can go half way and even further without their even
knowing it, if only she lets them fancy the credit is theirs of the bold
attack and the glorious victory." What made her more confident of
success was the fact that she knew for a certainty (and indeed there was
no doubt about it) that Evariste, before ever the Revolution had made
him a hero, had loved a mistress like any ordinary mortal, a very
unheroic creature, no other than the _concier