these two innocents burned one against the other, but if they could have foreseen never would have intermingled.  Rene feasted his eyes, planning in his mind a thousand fruitions of love that brought the water into his mouth.  In his ecstasy he let his book fall, which made him feel as sheepish as a monk surprised at a child’s tricks; but also from that he knew that Blanche was sound asleep, for she did not stir, and the wily jade would not have opened her eyes even at the greatest dangers, and reckoned on something else falling as well as the book of prayer.

There is no worse longing than the longing of a woman in certain condition.  Now, the page noticed his lady’s foot, which was delicately slippered in a little shoe of a delicate blue colour.  She had angularly placed it on a footstool, since she was too high in the seneschal’s chair.  This foot was of narrow proportions, delicately curved, as broad as two fingers, and as long as a sparrow, tail included, small at the top—­a true foot of delight, a virginal foot that merited a kiss as a robber does the gallows; a roguish foot; a foot wanton enough to damn an archangel; an ominous foot; a devilishly enticing foot, which gave one a desire to make two new ones just like it to perpetuate in this lower world the glorious works of God.  The page was tempted to take the shoe from this persuasive foot.  To accomplish this his eyes glowing with the fire of his age, went swiftly, like the clapper of a bell, from this said foot of delectation to the sleeping countenance of his lady and mistress, listening to her slumber, drinking in her respiration again and again, it did not know where it would be sweetest to plant a kiss—­whether on the ripe red lips of the seneschal’s wife or on this speaking foot.  At length, from respect or fear, or perhaps from great love, he chose the foot, and kissed it hastily, like a maiden who dares not.  Then immediately he took up his book, feeling his red cheeks redder still, and exercised with his pleasure, he cried like a blind man—­“Janua coeli,:  gate of Heaven.”  But Blanche did not move, making sure that the page would go from foot to knee, and thence to “Janua coeli,:  gate of Heaven.”  She was greatly disappointed when the litanies finished without any other mischief, and Rene, believing he had had enough happiness for one day, ran out of the room quite lively, richer from this hardy kiss than a robber who has robbed the poor-box.

When the seneschal’s lady was alone, she thought to herself that this page would be rather a long time at his task if he amused himself with the singing of the Magnificat at matins.  Then she determined on the morrow to raise her foot a little, and then to bring to light those hidden beauties that are called perfect in Touraine, because they take no hurt in the open air, and are always fresh.  You can imagine that the page, burned by his desire and his imagination, heated by the day before, awaited impatiently the