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 cheeks with my lips, and suddenly
without seeking them, mine met hers. It was a
long, long kiss, and it would have lasted longer still,
if I had not heard a hum! hum! just behind me,
at which she made her escape through the bushes, and
turning round I saw Rivet coming towards me, and standing
in the middle of the path, he said without even smiling:
“So, that is the way in which you settle the
affair of that pig 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.
Dinner made me lose my head altogether. I sat
beside her, and my hand continually met hers under
the table cloth, my foot touched hers, and our looks
encountered each other.
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, moistening
my lips against hers, while her uncle and Rivet were
disputing 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 excite her senses and overcome
her resistance, but when she felt that she was near
succumbing, she escaped out of the room, and I got
between the sheets, 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.
