She showed me a bizarre little chest that she was making, which at first-sight seemed to be carved out of coral; it was constructed out of the wax-seals cut from old letters pasted together.  This new mosaic was very simple, and yet remarkably pretty.  She asked me to give her, in order to finish her box, all the striking seals I possessed, emblazoned in figures and devices.  I gave her five or six letters that I had in my pocket, from which she dexterously cut the seals with her little scissors.  While she was thus engaged I strolled about the garden—­a Machiavellian manoeuvre, for, in order to return me my letters, she must come in search of me.

The gardens of Madame Taverneau are not the gardens of Armida; but it is not in the power of the commonalty to spoil entirely the work of God’s hands; trees, by the moonbeams of a summer-night, although only a few steps from red-cotton curtains and a sanhedrim of merry tradespeople, are still trees.  In a corner of the garden stood a large acacia tree, in full bloom, waving its yellow hair in the soft night-breeze, and mingling its perfume with that of the flowers of the marsh iris, poised like azure butterflies upon their long green stems.

The porch was flooded with silver light, and when Louise, having secured her seals, appeared upon the threshold, her pure and elegant form stood out against the dark background of the room like an alabaster statuette.

Her step, as she advanced towards me, was undulating and rhythmical like a Greek strophe.  I took my letters, and we strolled along the path towards an arbor.

So glad was I to get away from the templar Bois-Guilbert carrying off Rebecca, and the plated lamps, that I developed an eloquence at once persuasive and surprising.  Louise seemed much agitated; I could almost see the beatings of her heart—­the accents of her pure voice were troubled—­she spoke as one just awakened from a dream.  Tell me, are not these the symptoms, wherever you have travelled, of a budding love?

I took her hand; it was moist and cool, soft as the pulp of a magnolia flower,—­and I thought I felt her fingers faintly return my pressure.

I am delighted that this scene occurred by moonlight and under the acacia’s perfumed branches, for I affect poetical surroundings for my love scenes.  It would be disagreeable to recall a lovely face relieved against wall-paper covered with yellow scrolls; or a declaration of love accompanied, in the distance, by the Grace de Dieu; my first significant interview with Louise will be associated in my thoughts with moonbeams, the odor of the iris and the song of the cricket in the summer grass.