She had reached this point in her reflections when a kiss made her start. Alfred had just come in to bid her good morning. Having gone out before eight o'clock he had not yet seen her, and finding her so pretty in the robe of soft material that showed the outline of her graceful shoulders, and bust, and the lines of her legs terminating in the white, blue-veined, naked feet in their black slippers, he could not refrain from approaching her and stealing a kiss from the sweet place on her neck, between the ear and nape. This was such a surprise to her on emerging from the universe of ideas in which she had just been absorbed, that she gave a slight scream. "Lazy, chilly, timorous creature," said Chazel, who strove to jest in order to banish the angry expression which his caresses had just called up upon that charming face. "Do you know what o'clock it is? A quarter to twelve. You will never be ready for breakfast. What are you reading?" he continued, taking up the two volumes sent by Monsieur de Querne which were lying on the table; "more novels--but they are not cut. What have you been doing all the morning?" "I have been settling papers and making up accounts." How many of these little falsehoods her lips had uttered, and not one, even the slightest and most innocent of them, that did not cost her a cruel effort. "Will you ring for Julia?" she resumed. "I am going to have my hair dressed, and I shall be ready in ten minutes." "I am not in your way if I remain here?" he said. "Not particularly--for the present," she replied, and already she had passed into her dressing-room. She had put on a light cambric wrapper, and was unfastening her beautiful chestnut hair, combing it herself. Alfred remained on his feet, leaning against one of the leaves of the door and reading a newspaper which he had taken out of his pocket. The mere rustling of the paper irritated Helen's nerves, because it recalled this man's presence to her, and his presence appeared at this moment a profanation. Ah! if Armand had been there instead of the other, how charming she would have found it to associate him thus with the coquettish portion of the mysterious attentions to her beauty. But such familiarity in one whom they do not love is so displeasing to women, that even prostitutes are pained by it. In all, whether virtuous or not, modesty is the beginning and the ending of love. Alfred had never understood this. He was still in love with Helen; and these sudden intrusions upon her privacy procured him a dumb happiness that was composed of timid desires and furtive contemplations. Over the top of his open newspaper he watched the white hands passing backwards and forwards among the yielding hair, and the graceful shape of the arms which the wide sleeves, when thrown back by certain movements, allowed to be seen.