“No; I confess I do not feel as if I could be so generous to-night, but next night, if you will play the same part, we will change.  Veronique shall act and I will look on.”

“That would do beautifully,” said Veronique, with some vexation in her manner, “if the gentleman was not going to-morrow morning.”

“I will stay, dear Veronique, if only to prove how much I love you.”

I could not have wished for plainer speech on her part, and I should have liked to shew her how grateful I felt on the spot; but that would have been at Annette’s expense, as I had no right to make any alteration in the piece of which she was the author and had a right to expect all the profits.  Whenever I recall this pleasant scene I feel my heart beat with voluptuous pleasure, and even now, with the hand of old age upon me, I can not recall it without delight.

Veronique resigned herself to the passive part which her younger sister imposed on her, and turning aside she leant her head on her hand, disclosing a breast which would have excited the coldest of men, and bade me begin my attack on Annette.  It was no hard task she laid upon me, for I was all on fire, and I was certain of pleasing her as long as she looked at me.  As Annette was short-sighted, she could not distinguish in the heat of the action which way I was looking, and I succeeded in getting my right hand free, without her noticing me, and I was thus enabled to communicate a pleasure as real though not as acute as that enjoyed by her sister.  When the coverlet was disarranged, Veronique took the trouble to replace it, and thus offered me, as if by accident, a new spectacle.  She saw how I enjoyed the sight of her charms, and her eye brightened.  At last, full of unsatisfied desire, she shewed me all the treasures which nature had given her, just as I had finished with Annette for the fourth time.  She might well think that I was only rehearsing for the following night, and her fancy must have painted her coming joys in the brightest colours.  Such at all events were my thoughts, but the fates determined otherwise.  I was in the middle of the seventh act, always slower and more pleasant for the actress than the first two or three, when Costa came knocking loudly at my door, calling out that the felucca was ready.  I was vexed at this untoward incident, got up in a rage, and after telling him to pay the master for the day, as I was not going till the morrow, I went back to bed, no longer, however, in a state to continue the work I begun.  My two sweethearts were delighted with me, but we all wanted rest, though the piece should not have finished with an interruption.  I wanted to get some amusement out of the interval, and proposed an ablution, which made Annette laugh and which Veronique pronounced to be absolutely necessary.  I found it a delicious hors d’oeuvre to the banquet I had enjoyed.  The two sisters rendered each other various services, standing in the most lascivious postures, and I found my situation as looker-on an enviable one.