“I never should have thought your bedroom would have been so pretty. Why, it is as elegant as a lady’s chamber,” said Jacqueline, slipping into it as she spoke, with an exciting consciousness of doing something she ought not to do.
“What an insult, when I thought all my tastes were simple and severe,” he replied; but he had not followed her into the chamber, withheld by an impulse of modesty men sometimes feel, when innocence is led into audacity through ignorance.
“What lovely flowers you have!” said Jacqueline, from within. “Don’t they make your head ache?”
“I take them out at night.”
“I did not know that men liked, as we do, to be surrounded by flowers. Won’t you give me one?”
“All, if you like.”
“Oh! one pink will be enough for me.”
“Then take it,” said Marien; her curiosity alarmed him, and he was anxious to get her away.
“Would it not be nicer if you gave it me yourself?” she replied, with reproach in her tones.
“Here is one, Mademoiselle. And now I must tell you that I want to dress. I have to go out immediately.”