in, intrigues in
embryo, meetings full of mystery, delightful terrors with phantom lovers,
until at length a very palpable one presents himself, and comes and knocks
at the door of reality.

Sometimes he is very far from the cherished dream. He is neither young, nor
handsome, nor rich, nor intelligent. She rather makes a face, but she ends
by taking him. It is a man.

And meanwhile mamma has said as she kisses her daughter's forehead, "Sleep
well, my daughter," and she murmurs to papa, "What an angel of candour!"

LXIX.

THE GUST OF WIND.

"I turned my eyes instinctively towards
the lighted window, and through
the curtains which were drawn, I
distinctly caught sight of a woman,
dressed in white, with her hair undone,
and moving like one who knows that
she is alone."

G. DROZ (_Monsieur, Madame, et Bebe_).

Suzanne's room ... but why should I describe the room?... let me describe
Suzanne to you at this secret hour: I am sure that you would prefer me to
do so.

The young people who read this, will do well to skip this chapter, it
interests the men alone. Like the preacher who one day turned the women out
of church, as he wanted to keep the men only, I warn over-chaste young
ladies that these lines may shock....

Suzanne was preparing to go to bed.

To go to bed! That is not done quickly. You have, Mesdames, so many little
things to do before going to bed. So Suzanne was going to and fro in her
small room, attending to all these little details.

She was in a short petticoat, with her legs and arms bare and her little
feet in slippers. I warned you that I had borrowed the ring of Gyges and I
can tell you that I saw her calf and right above the knee, and all was like
a sculptor's model. Beneath the thin, partly-open cambric her budding bosom
rose and fell, marking a voluptuous valley on which, like the Shulamite's
lover, one would never be weary to let one's kisses wander.

But on seeing the white plump shoulders, the graceful throat, and the neck
on which was twisted a mass of little brown curls, and the back of velvet
which had no other covering than the thick rolls of half-loosed hair, and
the delicate hips which the little half-revealing petticoat closely
pressed, one asked oneself where the kisses would run on for the longest
time.

She was delicious like this and under every aspect, and undoubtedly she
knew it, for every time she passed before the large glass of her wardrobe,