desire was daily
whetted by Marianne, would have been capable, as Lissac said, of
accepting everything and forgetting all, so that he might clasp the
woman in his arms. She held him entirely in her grasp, under the
domination of her intoxicating seductiveness, skilfully granting by a
kiss that kindled the blood in Jose's veins the promise of more ardent
caresses. In this very exercise, she assumed a passionate tenderness
like a courtesan accustomed to easy defeat who resists her very
disposition so that she may not be too soon vanquished. She had
ungovernable impulses that carried her toward Rosas as to an unknown
pleasure.

The ivory-like pallor of this red-haired man with sunken eyes and
trembling lips, almost cold when she sought them under his tawny
moustache, pleased her. She sometimes said to him that under his gentle
manner he had the appearance of a tiger. "Or of a cat, and that pleases
me, for I am myself of that nature. Ah! how I love you!" She felt
herself tremble with fear of that being whom she felt that she had
conquered and who was entirely hers, but she was strangely troubled in
divining some of his secret thoughts.

She was in a hurry to have the marriage concluded. Secretly if it were
desired, but legally and positively. She dreaded Jose's reawakening, as
it were. She did not know how, perhaps an anonymous letter, a chance
meeting with Guy, an explanation, who knows?

"Although, after all," she thought, "I have been foolish to trouble
myself about this Guy. Word threats, that's all!"

The duke had treated her as a virtuous girl, requiring her to declare
that she had never loved any but him, or that, at least, no living
person had the right to say that he had possessed her. She had sworn all
that he desired, saying to Uncle Kayser: "Oaths like that are like
political promises, they bind one to nothing!"

The uncle began to entertain an extravagant admiration for his "little
Marianne." There is a woman, sure enough! Wonderful elegance! She had
promised to have a studio built for him, in which he could, instead of
painting, take his ease, stretched on a divan, smoking his pipe, and
pass his days in floating to the ceiling his theories of high and moral
art! An ideal picture!

He also was in favor of prompt action in respect to the marriage. As
little noise as possible. The least hitch and all was lost. What a pity!

"Do you wish me to tell you? It seems to me that you are walking to the
mayor's o