expression to use, although it was not very clear, and I asked
abruptly: "Well now, supposing I were to kiss you now, what would you
do?" She stopped to look at me from head to foot, and then said calmly:
"Oh! you? That is quite another matter."

I knew perfectly well, by Jove, that it was not the same thing at all,
as everybody in the neighborhood called me, _Handsome Labarbe_. I was
thirty years old in those days, but I asked her: "And why, pray?" She
shrugged her shoulders, and replied: "Well! because you are not so
stupid as he is." And then she added, looking at me shyly: "Nor so ugly,
either." And before she could make a movement to avoid me, I had
implanted a hearty kiss on her cheek. She sprang aside, but it was too
late, and then she said: "Well, you are not very bashful, either! But
don't do that sort of thing again."

I put on a humble look and said in a low voice: "Oh! Mademoiselle, as
for me, if I long for one thing more than another, it is to be summoned
before a magistrate for the same reason as Morin."

"Why?" she asked. And looking steadily at her, I replied: "Because you
are one of the most beautiful creatures living; because it would be an
honor and a glory for me to have wished to offer you violence, and
because people would have said, after seeing you: Well, Labarbe has
richly deserved what he has got, but he is a lucky fellow, all the
same."

She began to laugh heartily again, and said: "How funny you are!" And
she had not finished the word _funny_, before I had her in my arms, and
was kissing her ardently wherever I could find a place, on her forehead,
on her eyes, on her lips occasionally, on her cheeks, all over her