those priestly looks which see without being seen; but the stranger
compelled him to raise his head. She had stood still and was fixing on him
smiling a bright and confident look.

On seeing this, the Curé stood still also.

Certainly, in the white flock of his congregation he counted just as lovely
creatures every Sunday, he encountered just as provoking smiles.
Nevertheless, he was troubled; he felt a secret flame course through his
veins; a kind of charm emanated front this girl. He remembered reading that
magnetic currents flow forth from certain women which inflame the senses,
and he took a step backwards; but the charm operated in spite of himself,
his eyes remained fixed on the seductive outlines of the figure of the
unknown. She enquired of him politely the way to the _Mairie_. In pointing
it out to her the Curé perhaps displayed more earnestness than was
necessary, he even took a few steps with her as far as the entrance to the
village, then he returned home, thinking of this pretty girl.

During supper his servant told him that some mountebanks had arrived in the
village, and that they were going to give a performance the same evening in
the market-place. In fact a drum was heard beating the call, and the hoarse
voice of the clown announcing "a grand acrobatic spectacle, accompanied
with dances and followed by a pantomime."

Involuntarily the Curé's thought turned to the stranger; he went upstairs
into his study and behind his half-closed shutters he could take part in
the spectacle.

As he expected, the pretty girl was there, and seen from this distance in
the night, half-lighted by a few smoky lamps, with her little bodice of