This time the charming actress had devised a new background for her beauty. She was seated near the window, and with some bundles of silk thread and the aid of a few pins was working a pattern upon a drum of green cloth. Behind her the lace curtains were drawn back in their bands, and the visitor's gaze could rest upon the landscape of the Parc Monceau, upon the pale blue sky, the bare trees, the yellow grass, and the dark ivy that grew about the ruins. A February sun lit up this wintry prospect, and its rays fell caressingly upon Suzanne's hair with its soft golden sheen. A white dress, made in fanciful style, with long, wide sleeves and trimmings of violets, gave her the appearance of a lady of the Middle Ages. Her feet, encased in silk stockings of the same shade as the trimming of her dress, were modestly crossed upon a low footstool. Had she been told that less than forty-eight hours ago these same modest feet had wandered across the carpets of what was almost a house of ill-fame, that this hair had been handled by an aged lover who paid her, that she was in fact kept by Desforges, she would probably have denied the statement in perfect sincerity, so closely did her desire to please René make her identify herself with the _rôle_ she was playing. The poet could not be aware of this. He had spent three days in one continual state of exaltation, feeling his desire increase hourly, and very glad to feel it. The beginning of a passion is as alluring at twenty-five as at thirty-five it is terrifying. Suzanne's note had given him unmistakable proofs that the trifling imprudences which he himself looked upon as a crime had not given great displeasure, but in matters that concern us very closely we always find fresh motives for doubt, and this grown-up child had been silly enough to fear the reception that awaited him. How delighted he was, therefore, to be met with the simple familiarity, the beaming eyes, and the sweet smile of this woman whom, seated in the foreground of the wintry landscape, he immediately compared to those saints whom the early masters set in the midst of green fields and placid lakes. But this was a saint whose gown had been made by the first tailor in Paris, a saint from whom there emanated that odour of heliotrope which had already played such havoc with the poet's senses, and through the opening of whose long, wide sleeves two golden bands were seen clasping an arm as white as snow.