“Another of your bits of vanity.”

“It is done, then.  Thank you.”  She smiled at me mincingly, for the vinegar stung her lips a little.

With her moistened finger she took a patch which she placed with charming coquetry under her eye, and another which she placed near the corner of her mouth, and then, radiant and adorable, exclaimed:  “Hide away your little color-pots; I hear your uncle coming for me.  Clasp my bracelets for me.  Midnight!  O my poor horses!”

At that moment my uncle entered in silk shorts and a domino.

“I hope I do not intrude,” said he, gayly, on seeing me.

“What nonsense!” said my aunt, turning toward him.  “Ernest is going to the Embassy, like ourselves, and I have offered him a seat in the carriage.”

At the aspect of my aunt, my uncle, dazzled, held out his gloved hand to her, saying, “You are enchanting this evening, my dear.”  Then, with a sly smile, “Your complexion has a fine brightness, and your eyes have a wonderful brilliancy.”

“Oh, it is the fire they have been making up—­it is stifling here.  But you, my dear, you look splendid; I have never seen your beard so black.”

“It is because I am so pale—­I am frozen.  Jean forgot to look after my fire at all, and it went out.  Are you ready?”

My aunt smiled in turn as she took up her fan.

CHAPTER VIII

MY AUNT AS VENUS

Since that day when I kissed Madame de B. right on the centre of the neck, as she held out her forehead to me, there has crept into our intercourse an indescribable, coquettish coolness, which is nevertheless by no means unpleasant.  The matter of the kiss has never been completely explained.  It happened just as I left Saint-Cyr.  I was full of ardor, and the cravings of my heart sometimes blinded me.  I say that they sometimes blinded me; I repeat, blinded me, and this is true, for really I must have been possessed to have kissed my aunt on the neck as I did that day.  But let that pass.

It was not that she was hardly worth it; my little auntie, as I used to call her then, was the prettiest woman in the world—­coquettish, elegant; and what a foot! and, above all, that delightful little—­I don’t know what—­which is so fashionable now, and which tempts one always to say too much.

When I say that I must have been possessed, it is because I think of the consequences to which that kiss might have led.  Her husband, General de B., being my direct superior, it might have got me into a very awkward position; besides, there is the respect due to one’s family.  Oh, I have never failed in that.

But I do not know why I am recalling all these old recollections, which have nothing in common with what I am about to relate to you.  My intention was simply to tell you that since my return from Mexico I go pretty frequently to Madame de B.’s, as perhaps you do also, for she keeps up a rather good establishment, receives every Monday evening, and there is usually a crowd of people at her house, for she is very entertaining.  There is no form of amusement that she does not resort to in order to keep up her reputation as a woman of fashion.  I must own, however, that I had never seen anything at her house to equal what I saw last Monday.