place beside me, and behaved all the while as if I were her lover, or at
any rate as if she loved me. She did not seem to care what people thought
of my coldness, while I was in a rage, for the company must either have
thought me a fool or else that she was making game of me.

After dinner we returned to the garden, and the Charpillon, determined to
gain the victory, clung to my arm and after several turns led me towards
the maze where she wished to try her power. She made me sit down on the
grass beside her and attacked me with passionate words and tender
caresses, and by displaying the most interesting of her charms she
succeeded in seducing me, but still I do not know whether I were impelled
by love or vengeance, and I am inclined to think that my feelings were a
compound of both passions.

But at the moment she looked the picture of voluptuous abandon. Her
ardent eyes, her fiery cheeks, her wanton kisses, her swelling breast,
and her quick sighs, all made me think that she stood as much in need of
defeat as I of victory; certainly I should not have judged that she was
already calculating on resistance.

Thus I once more became tender and affectionate; I begged pardon for what
I had said and done. Her fiery kisses replied to mine, and I thought her
glance and the soft pressure of her body were inviting me to gather the
delicious fruit; but just as my hand opened the door of the sanctuary,
she gave a sudden movement, and the chance was lost.

"What! you would deceive me again."

"No, no but we have done enough now. I promise to spend the night in your
arms in your own house."