“Sweetheart, you are worthy of all my devotion and affection, if you have not ceased to respect me.”
“Can you doubt it, Pauline?”
“No, dearest, I think you love me, and that I shall never repent having trusted in you.”
The sweet sacrifice was offered again, and Pauline rose and laughed to find that she was no longer ashamed of her nakedness before me. Then, passing from jest to earnest, she said,—
“If the loss of shame is the result of knowledge, how was it that our first parents were not ashamed till they had acquired knowledge?”
“I don’t know, dearest, but tell me, did you ever ask your learned Italian master that same question?”
“Yes, I did.”
“What did he say?”
“That their shame arose not from their enjoyment, but from disobedience; and that in covering the parts which had seduced them, they discovered, as it were, the sin they had committed. Whatever may be said on the subject, I shall always think that Adam was much more to blame than Eve.”
“How is that?”