At dessert, as I was pouring champagne into her glass, I asked her how
with such a fiery temperament she had managed to preserve her virtue?

"Cupid," said I, "might have gathered the fruit that Hymen could not
taste. You are seventeen, and the pear has been ripe for two years at
least."

"Very true, but I have never had a lover."

"Never?"

"I have been courted, but to no effect. My heart was ever silent.
Possibly my father thought otherwise when I begged him, a month ago, to
get me married soon."

"Very likely, but as you were not in love, why were you in such a hurry?"

"I knew that the Duc d'Elbeuf would soon be coming to town, and that if
he found me still single he would oblige me to become the wife of a man I
detest, who would have me at any price."

"Who is this man for whom you have such an aversion?"

"He is one of the duke's pets, a monster who sleeps with his master."

"Really! I did not know the duke had such tastes."

"Oh yes; he is eighty-four, and he thinks himself a woman; he says he
must have a husband."

"That is very funny. And is this aspirant to your hand a handsome man?"

"I think him horrible; but everybody else thinks he is a fine man."

The charming Baret spent a week with me, and each day we renewed the
combat in which we were always conquerors and always conquered. I have
seen few women as pretty and seductive, and none whose skin was more
exquisitely soft and fair. Her breath was aromatic, and this made her
kisses most sweet. Her neck was exquisitely shaped, and the two globes,
tipped with coral, were as hard as marble. The exquisite curves of her
figure would have defied the skill of the ablest painter. I experienced
an ineffable joy in contemplating her, and in the midst of my happiness I
called myself unhappy because I could not satisfy all the desires which
her charms aroused in me. The frieze which crowned her columns was
composed of links of pale gold of the utmost fineness, and my fingers
strove in vain to give them another direction to that which nature had
given them. She could easily have been taught those lively yet graceful
movements which double the pleasure; nature had done her part in that
direction, and I do not think a more expert mistress in the art of love
could be found.

Each of us looked forward to the day of her departure with equal grief,
and our only consolation lay in the hope of meeting again, and often.
Three days after she went away, I went to s