"Come now, teach me to float on my back, Robert. Legs straight and
extended, arms close to the body, that's the way, is it not?"

"Yes, my dear cousin, and move your hands gently under you."

"Very good; here goes, then. One, two, three-off! Oh, what a little
goose I am, I'm afraid! Oh cousin, support me, just a little bit."

That was the moment when I ought to have said to her: "No, Madame, I am
not the man to support coquettes, and I will not." But I did not dare
say that; my tongue remained silent, and I passed my arm round the
Marchioness's waist, in order to support her more easily.

Alas! I had made a mistake; perhaps an irreparable one.

In that supreme moment it was but too true that I adored her seductive
charms. Let me cut it short. When I held her thus it seemed to me that
all the blood in my body rushed back to my heart--a deadly thrill ran
through every limb--from shame and indignation, no doubt; my vision
became obscure; it seemed as if my soul was leaving my body, and I fell
forward fainting, and dragged her down to the bottom of the water in a
mortal clutch.

I heard a loud cry. I felt her arms interlace my neck, her clenched
fingers sink deep into my flesh, and all was over. I had lost
consciousness.

When I came to myself I was lying on the grass. Julie was chafing my
hands, and the Marchioness, in her bathing-dress, which was streaming