“But,” said Bertha, “between us, would it be a sin?”

“It would be, on the contrary, a joy both here and in heaven; the angels would shed their fragrance around you, and make sweet music in your ears.”

“Tell me quickly, then,” said Bertha.

“Well, then, this is how my dear lord made my heart rejoice.”

With these words Jehan took Bertha in his arms, and strained her hungering to his heart, for in the soft light of the lamp, and clothed with the spotless linen, she was in this tempting bed, like the pretty petals of a lily at the bottom of the virgin calyx.

“When he held me as I hold thee he said to me, with a voice far sweeter than mine, ’Ah, Bertha, thou art my eternal love, my priceless treasure, my joy by day and my joy by night; thou art fairer than the day is day; there is naught so pretty as thou art.  I love thee more than God, and would endure a thousand deaths for the happiness I ask of thee!’ Then he would kiss me, not after the manner of husbands, which is rough, but in a peculiar dove-like fashion.”

To show her there and then how much better was the method of lovers, he sucked all the honey from Bertha’s lips, and taught her how, with her pretty tongue, small and rosy as that of a cat, she could speak to the heart without saying a single word, and becoming exhausted at this game, Jehan spread the fire of his kisses from the mouth to the neck, from the neck to the sweetest forms that ever a woman gave a child to slake its thirst upon.  And whoever had been in his place would have thought himself a wicked man not to imitate him.

“Ah!” said Bertha, fast bound in love without knowing it; “this is better.  I must take care to tell Imbert about it.”

“Are you in your proper senses, cousin?  Say nothing about it to your old husband.  How could he make his hands pleasant like mine?  They are as hard as washerwoman’s beetles, and his piebald beard would hardly please this centre of bliss, that rose in which lies our wealth, our substance, our loves, and our fortune.  Do you know that it is a living flower, which should be fondled thus, and not used like a trombone, or as if it were a catapult of war?  Now this was the gentle way of my beloved Englishman.”

Thus saying, the handsome youth comported himself so bravely in the battle that victory crowned his efforts, and poor innocent Bertha exclaimed—­

“Ah! cousin, the angels are come! but so beautiful is the music, that I hear nothing else, and so flaming are their luminous rays, that my eyes are closing.”

And, indeed, she fainted under the burden of those joys of love which burst forth in her like the highest notes of the organ, which glistened like the most magnificent aurora, which flowed in her veins like the finest musk, and loosened the liens of her life in giving her a child of love, who made a great deal of confusion in taking up his quarters.  Finally, Bertha imagined herself to be in Paradise, so happy did she feel; and woke from this beautiful dream in the arms of Jehan, exclaiming—­