“Aha! she has altered her hours,” said Paul, regarding one of the windows of the house opposite.

“Who has changed her hours, my dear fellow?”

“My neighbor.  A robust voice, don’t you think so?  Usually she practises in the morning, and I like that better, for it is the time I go out for a walk.”

Instinctively I glanced toward the lighted window, and through the drawn curtains I distinctly perceived a woman, dressed in white, with her hair loose, and swaying before her instrument like a person conscious that she was alone and responding to her own inspirations.

“My Fernand, go, seek glo-o-o-ry,” she was singing at the top of her voice.  The singing appeared to me mediocre, but the songstress in her peignoir interested me much.

“Gentlemen,” said I, “it appears to me there is behind that frail tissue”—­I alluded to the curtain—­“a very handsome woman.  Put out your cigars, if you please; their light might betray our presence and embarrass the fair singer.”

The cigars were at once dropped—­the window was even almost completely closed for greater security—­and we began to watch.

This was not, I know, quite discreet, but, as the devil willed it, we were young bachelors, all five of us, and then, after all, dear reader, would not you have done the same?

When the song was concluded, the singer rose.  It was very hot and her garment must have been very thin, for the light, which was at the farther end of the room, shone through the fabric.  It was one of those long robes which fall to the feet, and which custom has reserved for night wear.  The upper part is often trimmed with lace, the sleeves are wide, the folds are long and flowing, and usually give forth a perfume of ambergris or violet.  But perhaps you know this garment as well as I. The fair one drew near the looking-glass, and it seemed to us that she was contemplating her face; then she raised her hands in the air, and, in the graceful movement she made, the sleeve, which was unbuttoned and very loose, slipped from her beautifully rounded arm, the outline of which we distinctly perceived.

“The devil!” said Paul, in a stifled voice, but he could say no more.

The songstress then gathered up her hair, which hung very low, in her two hands and twisted it in the air, just as the washerwomen do.  Her head, which we saw in profile, inclined a little forward, and her shoulders, which the movement of her arms threw back, presented a more prominent and clear outline.

“Marble, Parian marble!” muttered Paul.  “O Cypris!  Cytherea!  Paphia!”

“Be quiet, you donkey!”

It really seemed as if the flame of the candle understood our appreciation and ministered specially to our admiration.  Placed behind the fair songstress, it illuminated her so perfectly that the garment with the long folds resembled those thin vapors which veil the horizon without hiding it, and in a word, the most inquisitive imagination, disarmed by so much courtesy, was ready to exclaim, “That is enough!”