From this ugly woman emanated a piquant, mysterious charm. Light and shadow, jostling and intercepting each other on her face on which hollows and protuberances abounded, imparted to it that suggestion of libertinism which the painter of love scenes gives to the rough sketch of his mistress. Everything about her,--her mouth, her eyes, her very plainness--was instinct with allurement and solicitation. Her person exhaled an aphrodisiac charm, which challenged and laid fast hold of the other sex. It unloosed desire, and caused an electric shock. Sensual thoughts were naturally and involuntarily aroused by her, by her gestures, her gait, her slightest movement--even by the air in which her body had left one of its undulations. Beside her, one felt as if he were near one of those disturbing, disquieting creatures, burning with the love disease and communicating it to others, whose face appears to man in his restless hours, torments his listless noonday thoughts, haunts his nights and trespasses upon his dreams. In the midst of Mademoiselle de Varandeuil's scrutiny, Germinie stooped over her, and covered her hand with hurried kisses. "There--there--enough of that," said Mademoiselle. "You would soon wear out the skin--with your way of kissing. Come, run along, enjoy yourself, and try not to stay out too late. Don't get all tired out." Mademoiselle de Varandeuil was left alone. She placed her elbows on her knees, stared at the fire and stirred the burning wood with the tongs. Then, as she was accustomed to do when deeply preoccupied, she struck herself two or three sharp little blows on the neck with the flat of her hand, and thereby set her black cap all awry. VI When she mentioned the subject of marriage to Germinie, Mademoiselle de Varandeuil touched upon the real cause of her trouble. She placed her hand upon the seat of her _ennui_. Her maid's uneven temper, her distaste for life, the languor, the emptiness, the discontent of her existence, arose from that disease which medical science calls the _melancholia of virgins_. The torment of her twenty-four years was the ardent, excited, poignant longing for marriage, for that state which was too holy and honorable for her, and which seemed impossible of attainment in face of the confession her womanly probity would insist upon making of her fall and her unworthiness. Family losses and misfortunes forcibly diverted her mind from her own troubles.