and kissed her hands, and she listened to it as something new and
agreeable, without exactly knowing how much of it she was to believe,
while in the end I felt agitated, and at last really myself believed
what I said: I was pale, anxious and trembling, and I gently put my arms
round her waist, and spoke to her softly, whispering into the little
curls over her ears. She seemed dead, so absorbed in thought was she.

Then her hand touched mine, and she pressed it, and I gently squeezed
her waist with a trembling, and gradually firmer, grasp. She did not
move now, and I touched her cheeks with my lips, and suddenly without
seeking them, mine met hers. It was a long, long kiss, and it would have
lasted longer still, if I had not heard a _hum! hum!_ just behind me, at
which she made her escape through the bushes, and turning round I saw
Rivet coming towards me, and standing in the middle of the path, he said
without even smiling: "So, that is the way in which you settle the
affair of _that pig Morin_." And I replied, conceitedly: "One does what
one can, my dear fellow. But what about the uncle? How have you got on
with him? I will answer for the niece." "I have not been so fortunate
with him," he replied.

Whereupon I took his arm, and we went indoors.


III

Dinner made me lose my head altogether. I sat beside her, and my hand
continually met hers under the table cloth, my foot touched hers, and
our looks encountered each other.

After dinner we took a walk by moonlight, and I whispered all the tender