inclined to respond with a box on the ear.

"No," he said in a dry tone of voice.

And with that he turned his back. The fair lad knew that he had just
been guilty of some breach of good manners. He blushed more hotly than
ever and looked scared.

The traditional three knocks were given, and among the returning throng,
attendants, laden with pelisses and overcoats, bustled about at a great
rate in order to put away people's things. The clappers applauded the
scenery, which represented a grotto on Mount Etna, hollowed out in a
silver mine and with sides glittering like new money. In the background
Vulcan's forge glowed like a setting star. Diana, since the second act,
had come to a good understanding with the god, who was to pretend that
he was on a journey, so as to leave the way clear for Venus and Mars.
Then scarcely was Diana alone than Venus made her appearance. A shiver
of delight ran round the house. Nana was nude. With quiet audacity she
appeared in her nakedness, certain of the sovereign power of her flesh.
Some gauze enveloped her, but her rounded shoulders, her Amazonian
bosom, her wide hips, which swayed to and fro voluptuously, her whole
body, in fact, could be divined, nay discerned, in all its foamlike
whiteness of tint beneath the slight fabric she wore. It was Venus
rising from the waves with no veil save her tresses. And when Nana
lifted her arms the golden hairs in her armpits were observable in the
glare of the footlights. There was no applause. Nobody laughed any more.
The men strained forward with serious faces, sharp features, mouths
irritated and parched. A wind seemed to have passed, a soft, soft wind,
laden with a secret menace. Suddenly in the bouncing child the woman
stood discovered, a woman full of restless suggestion, who brought with