"You are charming," he said, kissing her wrists, and he was pleased to find that his lips had accelerated her pulse. She did not speak, could hardly breathe. She was agitated and very pale.
He sat down facing her. She looked at him with her mysterious, half sleepy eyes. He felt that he was falling in love all over again. He forgot his reasonings and his fears, and took acute pleasure in penetrating the mystery of these eyes and studying the vague smile of this dolorous mouth.
He enlaced her fingers in his, and for the first time, in a low voice, he called her Hyacinthe.
She listened, her breast heaving, her hands in a fever. Then in a supplicating voice, "I implore you," she said, "let us have none of that. Only desire is good. Oh, I am rational, I mean what I say. I thought it all out on the way here. I left him very sad tonight. If you knew how I feel—I went to church today and was afraid and hid myself when I saw my confessor—"
These plaints he had heard before, and he said to himself, "You may sing whatever tune you want to, but you shall dance tonight." Aloud he answered in monosyllables as he continued to take possession of her.
He rose, thinking she would do the same, or that if she remained seated he could better reach her lips by bending over her.
"Your lips, your lips—the kiss you gave me last night—" he murmured, as his face came close to hers. She put up her lips and stood, and they embraced, but as his hands went seeking she recoiled.
"Think how ridiculous it all is," she said in a low voice, "to undress, put on night clothes—and that silly scene, getting into bed!"
He avoided declaring, but attempted, by an embrace which bent her over backward, to make her understand that she could spare herself those embarrassments. Tacitly, in his own turn, feeling her body stiffen under his fingers, he understood that she absolutely would not give herself in the room here, in front of the fire.
"Oh well," she said, disengaging herself, "if you will have it!"