The chemise, endowed with a happy spirit of emulation, did not lag behind the dress: first it slipped from the shoulders before she thought of preventing it; then, taking advantage of a moment when the arms were perpendicular, it escaped from them with much address and fell as far as the hips, whose waving contour half stopped it.--Thereupon Rosalind noticed the perfidy of her last garment and raised her knee a little to prevent it from falling altogether.--In that pose she was a perfect copy of the marble statues of goddesses, whose intelligent drapery, grieved to conceal so many charms, regretfully envelops the shapely thighs, and by well-planned treachery stops just below the place it is intended to hide.--But as the chemise was not of marble, and its folds did not sustain it, it continued its triumphal descent, fell upon the dress and lay in a circle at its mistress's feet like a great white greyhound. [Illustration: Chapter XVI--_The chemise, endowed with a happy spirit of emulation, did not lag behind the dress: first it slipped from the shoulders before she thought of preventing it; then, taking advantage of a moment when the arms were perpendicular, it escaped from them with much address and fell as far as the hips, whose waving contour half stopped it._] Of course, there was a very simple means of avoiding all this confusion; namely, by holding the fleeing garment with the hand; but that idea, natural as it was, did not occur to our modest heroine. She was left, therefore, without any veil, her fallen clothing forming a sort of pedestal, in all the transparent splendor of her lovely nudity, in the soft light of an alabaster lamp that D'Albert had lighted. D'Albert, fairly dazzled, gazed at her in ecstasy. "I am cold," she said, folding her arms across her breast. "Oh! one moment more! I pray you!" Rosalind unfolded her arms, rested the tip of her finger on the back of a chair, and stood perfectly still; she leaned slightly to one side in order to bring out all the grace of the undulating line;--she seemed in no wise embarrassed, and the imperceptible flush on her cheek did not deepen a single shade: but the somewhat hurried beating of her heart made the contour of her left bosom tremble. The young enthusiast in beauty could not feast his eyes enough on such a spectacle: we must say, to the unbounded praise of Rosalind, that this time the reality surpassed his dream, and that he was not conscious of the slightest disillusionment.