t silent and tranquil,
faithful, with its goats and nymphs, to the lovers of the time of the
Grand Duchess Eliza. She felt at once freed from the painful, brutal
world, and transported to ages wherein she had not known the sadness of
life. At the foot of the stairs, the steps of which were covered with
roses, Dechartre was waiting. She threw herself in his arms. He carried
her inert, like a precious trophy before which he had become pallid and
trembling. She enjoyed, her eyelids half closed, the superb humiliation
of being a beautiful prey. Her fatigue, her sadness, her disgust with
the day, the reminiscence of violence, her regained liberty, the need
of forgetting, remains of fright, everything vivified, awakened her
tenderness. She threw her arms around the neck of her lover.

They were as gay as children. They laughed, said tender nothings,
played, ate lemons, oranges, and other fruits piled up near-them on
painted plates. Her lips, half-open, showed her brilliant teeth. She
asked, with coquettish anxiety, if he were not disillusioned after the
beautiful dream he had made of her.

In the caressing light of the day, for the enjoyment of which he had
arranged, he contemplated her with youthful joy. He lavished praise
and kisses upon her. They forgot themselves in caresses, in friendly
quarrels, in happy glances.

He asked her how a little red mark on her temple had come there. She
replied that she had forgotten; that it was nothing. She hardly lied;
she had really forgotten.

They recalled to each other their short but beautiful history, all their
life, which began upon the day when they had met.

"You know, on the terrace, the day after your arrival, you said vague
things to me. I guessed that you loved me."

"I was afraid to seem stupid to you."

"You were, a little. It was my triumph. It made me impatient to see you
so little troubled near me. I loved you before you loved me. Oh, I do
not blush for it!"

He gave her a glass of Asti. But there was a bottle of Trasimene. She
wished to taste it, in memory of the lake which she had seen silent and
beautiful at night in its opal cup. That was when she had first visited
Italy, six years before.

He chided her for having discovered the beauty of things without his
aid.

She said:

"Without you, I did not know how to see anything. Why did you not come
to me before?"

He closed her lips with a kiss. Then she said:

"Yes, I love you! Yes, I never have loved