“Tell me you forgive me, and confess that you have shared all my pleasure.”
“You know I did. Yes, I forgive you.”
Then I give her her liberty, and treating her to some very pleasant caresses, I ask her to have the same kindness for me, and she goes to work with a smile on her pretty lips.
“Tell me you love me,” I say to her.
“No, I do not, for you are an atheist, and hell awaits you.”
The weather was fine again, and the elements calm; I kissed her hands and told her that the postillion had certainly not seen anything, and that I was sure I had cured her of her dread of thunder, but that she was not likely to reveal the secret of my remedy. She answered that one thing at least was certain, namely that no other woman had ever been cured by the same prescription.
“Why,” I said, “the same remedy has very likely been applied a million of times within the last thousand years. To tell you the truth, I had somewhat depended upon it, when we entered the chaise together, for I did not know any other way of obtaining the happiness of possessing you. But console yourself with the belief that, placed in the same position, no frightened woman could have resisted.”
“I believe you; but for the future I will travel only with my husband.”
“You would be wrong, for your husband would not have been clever enough to cure your fright in the way I have done.”
“True, again. One learns some curious things in your company; but we shall not travel tete-a-tete again.”