autiful here to listen to your nonsense."

He drew her toward him, although she tried, by little pushes, to
extricate herself, and through her soft flannel gown he felt the
warmth of her flesh. He stammered:

"Yvette!"

"Well, what?"

"I do love you!"

"But you are not in earnest, Muscade."

"Oh, yes I am. I have loved you for a long time."

She continually kept trying to separate herself from him, trying to
release the arm crushed between their bodies. They walked with
difficulty, trammeled by this bond and by these movements, and went
zigzagging along like drunken folk.

He knew not what to say to her, feeling that he could not talk to a
young girl as he would to a woman. He was perplexed, thinking what
he ought to do, wondering if she consented or did not understand,
and curbing his spirit to find just the right, tender, and decisive
words. He kept saying every second:

"Yvette! Speak! Yvette!"

Then, suddenly, risking all, he kissed her on the cheek. She gave a
little start aside, and said with a vexed air:

"Oh! you are absurd. Are you going to let me alone?"

The tone of her voice did not at all reveal her thoughts nor her
wishes; and, not seeing her too angry, he applied his lips to the
beginning of her neck, just beneath the golden hair, that charming
spot which he had so often coveted.

Then she made great efforts to free herself. But he held her
strongly, and placing his other hand on her shoulder, he compelled
her to turn her head toward him and gave her a fond, passionate
kiss, squarely on the mouth.

She slipped from his arms by a quick undulation of the body, and,
free from his grasp, she disappeared into the darkness with a great
swishing of skirts, like the whir of a bird as it flies away.

He stood motionless a moment, surprised by her suppleness and her
disappearance, then hearing nothing, he called gently: "Yvette!"

She did not reply. He began to walk forward, peering through the
shadows, looking in the underbrush for the white spot her dress
should make. All was dark. He cried out more loudly:

"Mam'zelle Yvette! Mam'zelle Yvette!"

Nothing stirred. He stopped and listened. The whole island was
still; there was scarcely a rustle of leaves over his head. The
frogs alone continued their deep croakings on the shores. Then he
wandered from thicket to thicket, going where the banks were steep
and bushy and returning to places where they were flat and bare as a
dead man's arm. He