"Take care, my little ones! Two at a time is too much for an old fellow like me. Take care! You are burning yourselves. Quick, down with your hands, or I won't be responsible for anything."
The Baroness held her cigarette, poised between her lips, towards him.
"A little fire, please, uncle!"
"Fire! Fire! I'm sorry I can't oblige you, my child, my fire has gone out," he answered slyly.
"Has it?"
She boxed his ears with her finger-tips. The old man seized her arm, held it between his hands and felt it up to her shoulder.
"You're not as thin as you look, my darling," he said, stroking her soft flesh through her sleeve.
The Baroness did not object. The compliment seemed to please her. Playfully, smilingly, she pushed up her sleeve, exposing a beautifully-modelled arm, daintily rounded and white as milk. Almost immediately, however, remembering my presence, she hastily pulled it down again; but I had seen a spark of the consuming fire which burned in her eyes, an expression which comes into the face of a woman in the transports of love.
The burning match which I held between my fingers, with the intention of lighting a cigarette, accidentally dropped between my coat and waistcoat.
With a terrified scream, the Baroness rushed at me and tried to extinguish the flame between her fingers.