she was trembling.
"After all, perhaps she is acting a part--like myself."

He remained awed by the turn the conversation had taken. He sought,
mentally, a way of getting back to the subject from which Hyacinthe had
diverted him, of the Satanism of Canon Docre.

"Well, let us think of that no more," she said, coming very near. She
smiled, and was once more the Hyacinthe he knew.

"But if on my account you can no longer take communion--"

She interrupted him. "Would you be sorry if I did not love you?" and she
kissed his eyes. He squeezed her politely in his arms, but he felt her
trembling, and from motives of prudence he got away.

"Is he so inexorable, your confessor?"

"He is an incorruptible man, of the old school. I chose him expressly."

"If I were a woman it seems to me I should take, on the contrary, a
confessor who was pliable and caressible and who would not violently
pillory my dainty little sins. I would have him indulgent, oiling the
hinges of confession, enticing forth with beguiling gestures the
misdeeds that hung back. It is true there would be risk of seducing a
confessor who perhaps would be defenceless--"

"And that would be incest, because the priest is a spiritual father, and
it would also be sacrilege, because the priest is consecrated.--Oh,"
speaking to herself, "I was mad, mad--" suddenly carried away.

He observed her; sparks glinted in the myopic eyes of this extraordinary
woman. Evidently he had just stumbled, unwittingly, onto a guilty secret
of hers.

"Well," and he smiled, "do you still commit infidelities to me with a
false me?"

"I do not understand."

"Do you receive, at night, the visit of the incubus which resembles
me?"

"No. Since I have been able to possess you in the flesh I have no need
to evoke your image."

"What a downright Satanist you are!"

"Maybe. I have been so constantly associated with priests."

"You're a great one," he said, bowing. "Now listen to me, and do me a
great favour. You know Canon Docre?"

"I should say!"

"Well, what in the world is this man, about whom I hear so much?"

"From whom?"

"Gevingey and Des Hermies."

"Ah, you consult the astrologer! Yes, he met the Canon in my own house,
but I didn't know that Docre was acquainted with Des Hermies, who didn't
attend our receptions in those days"

"Des Hermies has never seen Docre. He knows him, as I do, only by
hearsay, from Gevingey. Now, briefly, how much truth is there in the
sto