"No, dearest; I am too frightened. Who knows what might happen?"
But he held her in his arms, and whispered in her ear:
"Your servants sleep on the third floor, looking on to the Square, and your room, on the first, looks on to the garden, so nobody can hear us. I love you so that I wish to love you entirely, from head to foot." And he embraced her vehemently, maddening her with his kisses.
She resisted still, frightened and even ashamed. But he put his arms round her, lifted her up, and carried her off through the rain, which was by this time descending in torrents.
The door was open; they groped their way upstairs; and when they were in the room she bolted the door while he lit a match.
Then she fell, half fainting, into a chair, while he kneeled down beside her and slowly he undressed her, beginning with her shoes and stockings in order to kiss her feet.
At last, she said, panting:
"No! no! Étienne, please let me remain a virtuous woman; I should be too angry with you afterwards; and after all, it is so horrid, so common. Cannot we love each other with a spiritual love only? Oh! Étienne!"
With the skill of a lady's maid and the speed of a man in a hurry, he unbuttoned, untied, unhooked and unlaced without stopping, and when she tried to get up and run away, she suddenly emerged from her dress, her petticoat and her underclothes as naked as a hand thrust from a muff. In her fright she ran to the bed in order to hide herself behind the curtains; but it was a dangerous place of refuge, and he followed her. But in haste he took off his sword too quickly, and it fell on to the floor with a crash. And then a prolonged, shrill child's cry came from the next room, the door of which had remained open.
"You have awakened André," she whispered, "and he won't be able to go to sleep again."