“Ah!” she said a few minutes after, “my maid has forgotten to change my chemise.”

“Allow me to take her place.”

“Very well, but recollect that I give permission only to your eyes to take a share in the proceedings.”

“Agreed!”

She unlaced herself, took off her stays and her chemise, and told me to be quick and put on the clean one, but I was not speedy enough, being too much engaged by all I could see.

“Give me my chemise,” she exclaimed; “it is there on that small table.”

“Where?”

“There, near the bed.  Well, I will take it myself.”

She leaned over towards the table, and exposed almost everything I was longing for, and, turning slowly round, she handed me the chemise which I could hardly hold, trembling all over with fearful excitement.  She took pity on me, my hands shared the happiness of my eyes; I fell in her arms, our lips fastened together, and, in a voluptuous, ardent pressure, we enjoyed an amorous exhaustion not sufficient to allay our desires, but delightful enough to deceive them for the moment.

With greater control over herself than women have generally under similar circumstances, she took care to let me reach only the porch of the temple, without granting me yet a free entrance to the sanctuary.