“Did the porter see us? Was there anyone else about?” she asked.
“No; I was sitting up for you.”
“Does Victoire know anything?”
“Rather not!” returned Bérénice.
Ten hours later Lucien awoke to meet Coralie’s eyes. She had watched by him as he slept; he knew it, poet that he was. It was almost noon, but she still wore the delicate dress, abominably stained, which she meant to lay up as a relic. Lucien understood all the self-sacrifice and delicacy of love, fain of its reward. He looked into Coralie’s eyes. In a moment she had flung off her clothing and slipped like a serpent to Lucien’s side.
At five o’clock in the afternoon Lucien was still sleeping, cradled in this voluptuous paradise. He had caught glimpses of Coralie’s chamber, an exquisite creation of luxury, a world of rose-color and white. He had admired Florine’s apartments, but this surpassed them in its dainty refinement.
Coralie had already risen; for if she was to play her part as the Andalusian, she must be at the theatre by seven o’clock. Yet she had returned to gaze at the unconscious poet, lulled to sleep in bliss; she could not drink too deeply of this love that rose to rapture, drawing close the bond between the heart and the senses, to steep both in ecstasy. For in that apotheosis of human passion, which of those that were twain on earth that they might know bliss to the full creates one soul to rise to love in heaven, lay Coralie’s justification. Who, moreover, would not have found excuse in Lucien’s more than human beauty? To the actress knéeling by the bedside, happy in love within her, it seemed that she had received love’s consecration. Bérénice broke in upon Coralie’s rapture.
“Here comes Camusot!” cried the maid. “And he knows that you are here.”
Lucien sprang up at once. Innate generosity suggested that he was doing Coralie an injury. Bérénice drew aside a curtain, and he fled into a dainty dressing-room, whither Coralie and the maid brought his clothes with magical speed.
Camusot appeared, and only then did Coralie’s eyes alight on Lucien’s boots, warming in the fender. Bérénice had privately varnished them, and put them before the fire to dry; and both mistress and maid alike forgot that tell-tale witness. Bérénice left the room with a scared glance at Coralie. Coralie flung herself into the depths of a settee, and bade Camusot seat himself in the gondole, a round-backed chair that stood opposite. But Coralie’s adorer, honest soul, dared not look his mistress in the face; he could not take his eyes off the pair of boots.