One window was lighted still, and the half-drawn curtain allowed a room to
be seen the size of a sentry-box.

He passed slowly by, and gave a look.

A strange emotion seized him: he would have wished not to have seen, and he
felt full of a delicious trouble at having seen.

He looked round him with alarm; he was quite alone. No one had detected
him, no one could have detected him, plunging his burning gaze into the
depth of the little room where the fair dancer, stripped of her tights,
appeared to him half-naked and dazzling like a goddess of Rubens.




VII.


THE SALUTE.

"She is fair, she is white, and her golden hair
Sweetly frames her rosy face:
The limpid look of her azure eyes
Beguiles near as much as her half-closed lip."

N. CHANNARD (_Poésies inédites_).

The next day, from break of dawn, the strolling players were already making