The lovely widow seemed very well pleased when the plums were exhausted, and the words: “That is very lucky!” escaped from her lips; but they were almost inaudible, and Chérubin did not hear them.
Meanwhile the pretty hostess had softly moved her chair away from the table; she drank a few spoonfuls of coffee, placed her cup on the mantel, then resumed her seat on her couch, saying to the young man, in a voice that went to his heart:
“Well! aren’t you coming to sit by me?”
Chérubin began to understand that the time had come when he must turn his attention to something besides plums; he left the table and walked about the salon, admiring divers lovely engravings, the subjects of which, while not too free, were well adapted to appeal to the passions. He went into ecstasies before Cupid and Psyche, the river Scamander, and an Odalisk lying on her couch; and finally he seated himself beside Madame Célival, who said to him:
“Do you like my engravings?”
“Yes, all those women are so lovely—especially the Odalisk!”
“The painter has hardly clothed her; but to enable us to admire her beauty, it was necessary to show her to us unclothed. That is allowed in painting; artists have privileges; we pardon everything in talent—or in love.”
These last words were accompanied by a sigh. Chérubin looked at the lovely widow, and she had never seemed to him more alluring; for her eyes shone with a fire that was at once intense and soft, and her half-closed lips seemed inclined to reply to many questions. The young man ventured to take a hand which was relinquished to him without reserve; he gazed fondly at that soft, plump, white hand, with its tapering fingers; he dared not put it to his lips as yet, but he pressed it tenderly, and not only was it not withdrawn, but a very warm pressure responded to his. Encouraged by that symptom, Chérubin was about to cover that hand with kisses, when he suddenly felt a sharp pain in the intestinal region.
“What’s the matter?” queried Madame Célival, amazed to find him holding her hand in the air, without kissing it.