I spoke to her in a manner that affected her so that she took me into a closet next to her room to shew me her books.  There were only thirty in all, but they were chosen, although somewhat elementary.  A woman like Clementine needed something more.

“Do you know, my dear Hebe, that you want more books?”

“I have often suspected it, dear Iolas, without being able to say exactly what I want.”

After spending an hour in glancing over Sardini’s works, I begged her to spew me her own.

“No,” said she, “they are too bad.”

“I expect so; but the good will outweigh the bad.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh, yes! you needn’t be afraid.  I will forgive the bad grammar, bad style, absurd images, faulty method, and even the verses that won’t scan.”

“That’s too much, Iolas; Hebe doesn’t need so vast a pardon as all that.  Here, sir, these are my scribblings; sift the faults and the defaults.  Read what you will.”

I was delighted that my scheme of wounding her vanity had succeeded, and I began by reading aloud an anacreontic, adding to its beauties by the modulation of my voice, and keenly enjoying her pleasure at finding her work so fair.  When I improved a line by some trifling change she noticed it, for she followed me with her eyes; but far from being humiliated, she was pleased with my corrections.  The picture was still hers, she thought, though with my skilled brush I brought out the lights and darkened the shadows, and she was charmed to see that my pleasure was as great or greater than hers.  The reading continued for two hours.  It was a spiritual and pure, but a most intensely voluptuous, enjoyment.  Happy, and thrice happy, if we had gone no farther; but love is a traitor who laughs at us when we think to play with him without falling into his nets.  Shall a man touch hot coals and escape the burning?

The countess interrupted us, and begged us to join the company.  Clementine hastened to put everything back, and thanked me for the happiness I had given her.  The pleasure she felt shewed itself in her blushes, and when she came into the drawing-room she was asked if she had been fighting, which made her blush still more.

The faro-table was ready, but before sitting down I told Clairmont to get me four good horses for the following day.  I wanted to go to Lodi and back by dinnertime.

Everybody played as before, the abbe excepted, and he, to my huge delight, did not put in an appearance at all, but his place was supplied by a canon, who punted a ducat at a time and had a pile of ducats before him.  This made me increase my bank, and when the game was over, I was glad to see that everybody had won except the canon, but his losses had not spoilt his temper.