We only separated to dress; then after taking a turn in the garden we dined together, sure that in a sumptuous repast, washed down by the choicest wines, we should find strength to reanimate our desires and to lull them to sleep in bliss.

At dessert, as I was pouring champagne into her glass, I asked her how with such a fiery temperament she had managed to preserve her virtue?

“Cupid,” said I, “might have gathered the fruit that Hymen could not taste.  You are seventeen, and the pear has been ripe for two years at least.”

“Very true, but I have never had a lover.”

“Never?”

“I have been courted, but to no effect.  My heart was ever silent.  Possibly my father thought otherwise when I begged him, a month ago, to get me married soon.”

“Very likely, but as you were not in love, why were you in such a hurry?”

“I knew that the Duc d’Elbeuf would soon be coming to town, and that if he found me still single he would oblige me to become the wife of a man I detest, who would have me at any price.”

“Who is this man for whom you have such an aversion?”

“He is one of the duke’s pets, a monster who sleeps with his master.”

“Really!  I did not know the duke had such tastes.”

“Oh yes; he is eighty-four, and he thinks himself a woman; he says he must have a husband.”

“That is very funny.  And is this aspirant to your hand a handsome man?”

“I think him horrible; but everybody else thinks he is a fine man.”

The charming Baret spent a week with me, and each day we renewed the combat in which we were always conquerors and always conquered.  I have seen few women as pretty and seductive, and none whose skin was more exquisitely soft and fair.  Her breath was aromatic, and this made her kisses most sweet.  Her neck was exquisitely shaped, and the two globes, tipped with coral, were as hard as marble.  The exquisite curves of her figure would have defied the skill of the ablest painter.  I experienced an ineffable joy in contemplating her, and in the midst of my happiness I called myself unhappy because I could not satisfy all the desires which her charms aroused in me.  The frieze which crowned her columns was composed of links of pale gold of the utmost fineness, and my fingers strove in vain to give them another direction to that which nature had given them.  She could easily have been taught those lively yet graceful movements which double the pleasure; nature had done her part in that direction, and I do not think a more expert mistress in the art of love could be found.

Each of us looked forward to the day of her departure with equal grief, and our only consolation lay in the hope of meeting again, and often.  Three days after she went away, I went to see her, more in love than ever, and I gave her two notes of five thousand francs apiece.  Her husband might have his suspicions, but he was too happy at being enabled to pay his debts and to keep his shop open to say anything unpleasant.  Many husbands besides himself think themselves lucky to have such productive wives.