“We were alone, quite alone, as Rivet and her uncle had disappeared down a sidewalk, and I made her a real declaration of love, while I squeezed and kissed her hands, and she listened to it as to something new and agreeable, without exactly knowing how much of it she was to believe, while in the end I felt agitated, and at last really myself believed what I said.  I was pale, anxious and trembling, and I gently put my arm round her waist and spoke to her softly, whispering into the little curls over her ears.  She seemed in a trance, so absorbed in thought was she.

“Then her hand touched mine, and she pressed it, and I gently squeezed her waist with a trembling, and gradually firmer, grasp.  She did not move now, and I touched her cheek with my lips, and suddenly without seeking them my lips met hers.  It was a long, long kiss, and it would have lasted longer still if I had not heard a hm! hm! just behind me, at which she made her escape through the bushes, and turning round I saw Rivet coming toward me, and, standing in the middle of the path, he said without even smiling:  ’So that is the way you settle the affair of that pig of a Morin.’  And I replied conceitedly:  ’One does what one can, my dear fellow.  But what about the uncle?  How have you got on with him?  I will answer for the niece.’  ‘I have not been so fortunate with him,’ he replied.

“Whereupon I took his arm and we went indoors.”  III

“Dinner made me lose my head altogether.  I sat beside her, and my hand continually met hers under the tablecloth, my foot touched hers and our glances met.

“After dinner we took a walk by moonlight, and I whispered all the tender things I could think of to her.  I held her close to me, kissed her every moment, while her uncle and Rivet were arguing as they walked in front of us.  They went in, and soon a messenger brought a telegram from her aunt, saying that she would not return until the next morning at seven o’clock by the first train.

“‘Very well, Henriette,’ her uncle said, ’go and show the gentlemen their rooms.’  She showed Rivet his first, and he whispered to me:  ’There was no danger of her taking us into yours first.’  Then she took me to my room, and as soon as she was alone with me I took her in my arms again and tried to arouse her emotion, but when she saw the danger she escaped out of the room, and I retired very much put out and excited and feeling rather foolish, for I knew that I should not sleep much, and I was wondering how I could have committed such a mistake, when there was a gentle knock at my door, and on my asking who was there a low voice replied:  ‘I’

“I dressed myself quickly and opened the door, and she came in.  ’I forgot to ask you what you take in the morning,’ she said; ’chocolate, tea or coffee?’ I put my arms round her impetuously and said, devouring her with kisses:  ‘I will take—­I will take—­’

“But she freed herself from my arms, blew out my candle and disappeared and left me alone in the dark, furious, trying to find some matches, and not able to do so.  At last I got some and I went into the passage, feeling half mad, with my candlestick in my hand.