to her voice for the man whom she wishes to please.

"I would wait patiently through an eternity," said he, "if I were sure
of finding a divinity so fair; but it is no compliment to speak of your
beauty to you; nothing save worship could touch you. Suffer me only to
kiss your scarf."

"Oh, fie!" she said, with a commanding gesture, "I esteem you enough to
give you my hand."

She held it out for his kiss. A woman's hand, still moist from the
scented bath, has a soft freshness, a velvet smoothness that sends a
tingling thrill from the lips to the soul. And if a man is attracted to
a woman, and his senses are as quick to feel pleasure as his heart is
full of love, such a kiss, though chaste in appearance, may conjure up a
terrific storm.

"Will you always give it me like this?" the General asked humbly when he
had pressed that dangerous hand respectfully to his lips.

"Yes, but there we must stop," she said, smiling. She sat down,
and seemed very slow over putting on her gloves, trying to slip the
unstretched kid over all her fingers at once, while she watched M.
de Montriveau; and he was lost in admiration of the Duchess and those
repeated graceful movements of hers.

"Ah! you were punctual," she said; "that is right. I like punctuality.
It is the courtesy of kings, His Majesty says; but to my thinking, from
you men it is the most respectful flattery of all. Now, is it not? Just
tell me."

Again she gave him a side glance to express her insidious friendship,
for he was dumb with happiness sheer happiness through such nothings
as these! Oh, the Duchess understood _son metier de femme_--the art
and mystery of being a woman--most marvelously well; she knew, to
admiration, how to raise a man in his own esteem as he humbled himself
to her; how to reward every step of the descent to sentimental folly
with hollow flatteries.

"You will never forget to come at nine o'clock."

"No; but are you going to a ball every night?"

"Do I know?" she answered, with a little childlike shrug of the
shoulders; the gesture was meant to say that she was nothing if not
capricious, and that a lover must take her as she was.--"Besides," she
added, "what is that to you? You shall be my escort."

"That would be difficult tonight," he objected; "I am not properly
dressed."

"It seems to me," she returned loftily, "that if anyone has a right
to complain of your costume, it is I. Know, therefore, _monsieur le
voyageur_, that if I accept