“Ah! be quite sure, Catherine, that I did not do so by wish or inclination, but only because she found ways and means energetic enough to vanquish my timidity.” “Oh! my friend, you may believe me, as I am the elder of us two, timidity is a great sin against love. But did you not see that that beggar had holes in her stockings and a seam of filth and mud, half-an-ell high, on the bottom of her petticoat?” “I saw it, Catherine.” “Have you not seen, Jacques, how badly she is made and that really she is skinny?” “I saw it, Catherine.” “And withal you loved that Savoyard she-monkey, you who have a white skin and distinguished manners!” “I cannot understand it myself, Catherine. It must have been that at that moment my imagination was full of you. And it was your image only gave me the pluck and strength you reproach me with to-day. Imagine yourself, Catherine, my rapture to press you in my arms, yourself or only a girl who resembled you a little. Because I loved you desperately.” She took my hand and sighed, and in a tone of sadness I continued to say: “Yes, I did love you, Catherine, and I could still love you except for that disgusting monk.” She cried out: “What a suspicion! You offend me. It is a folly.” “Then you do not love the Capuchin?” “Fie!” As I did not consider it to be any use to press the subject further, I took her round the waist, we embraced, our lips met and all my being seemed to melt in voluptuousness. After a short moment of luxurious confusion, she disentangled herself, her cheeks rosy, her eyes moistened, her lips half separated. It is from that day that I knew how much a woman is embellished and adorned by a kiss lovingly pressed on her mouth. Mine had made roses of the sweetest hue bloom on Catherine’s cheeks and strewn into the flowery blue of her eyes drops of diamantine dew. “You are a baby,” she said, readjusting her hood. “Go! you cannot remain a moment longer. M. de la Guéritude will be here at once. He loves me with an impatience which continually runs ahead of the meeting time.” Reading in my face how upset I was by this saying she spoke again with a quick vivacity: “Listen, Jacques, he returns every night at nine to his old woman, who shrewish by age, cannot bear his infidelities since she herself is unable to pay him in the same coin and has become awfully jealous. Come to-night at half-past nine. I’ll receive you. My house is at the corner of the Rue du Bac. You’ll recognise it by its three windows on every floor and by its balcony covered with roses; you know I always did like flowers. Good-bye till to-night.” Caressingly she pushed me back, hardly able to hide the wish to keep me with her, then placing one finger over her mouth she whispered again: “Till to-night.” CHAPTER XIII Taken by M. d’Asterac to the Isle of Swans I listen to his Discourse on Creation and Salamanders.