Then, with trembling hands and scarcely knowing what he was doing, he quickly undressed, got into the cool sheets, and stretching himself out comfortably, he almost forgot his love in the pleasure he found, tired out as he was, in the contact of the linen.  She did not return, however, no doubt finding amusement in making him languish.  He closed his eyes with a feeling of exquisite comfort, and reflected peaceably while waiting for what he so ardently longed for.  But by degrees his limbs grew languid and his thoughts became indistinct and fleeting, until his fatigue gained the upper hand and he fell asleep.

He slept that unconquerable, heavy sleep of the worn-out hunter, and he slept until daylight; and then, as the window had remained half open, the crowing of a cock suddenly woke him, and the baron opened his eyes, and feeling a woman’s body against his, finding himself, much to his surprise, in a strange bed, and remembering nothing for a moment, he stammered: 

“What?  Where am I?  What is the matter?”

Then she, who had not been asleep at all, looking at this unkempt man, with red eyes and swollen lips, replied in the haughty tone of voice in which she occasionally spoke to her husband: 

“It is nothing; it is only a cock crowing.  Go and sleep again, Monsieur, it has nothing to do with you.”

JULOT’S OPINION

The Duchess Huguette de Lionzac was very much infatuated with herself, but then she had a perfect right to be, and who, in her place, would not have shown a spice of conceit?  There was no success which she had wished for, that she had not attained.  She had received a medal for sculpture at the Salon, and at the Exhibition of Excessives she had shown a water-color which looked eccentric, even there.

She had published a collection of poems which was crowned by the French Academy, and a small volume of Rhythmic Prose of which the Revue de lemain said, “That it showed the most subtle and evanescent performance of those fugitive pieces which was sure to descend to posterity,” and when she acted in private theatricals, some exclaimed: 

“It is better than the Comedie Francaise,” while others, who were more refined, went so far as to utter the supreme praise:  “Better than the Theatre Libre.”

At one time, there had been a report, which had been propagated by the newspapers, that she was going to come out at the Opera Comique, in a part that had been written especially for her extraordinary voice, for it appeared that Massenet would not hear of anybody else for the part.

She was the circus-rider, Miss Edith, who, under that assumed name gave that unique and never-to-be-forgotten exhibition of horsemanship, and you remember what cheers there were, and what quantities of flowers covered the arena!  And you must not forget that this was before a paying public!