you, my dear, you look splendid; I have never seen your beard so black."

"It is because I am so pale--I am frozen. Jean forgot to look after my
fire at all, and it went out. Are you ready?"

My aunt smiled in turn as she took up her fan.




CHAPTER VIII

MY AUNT AS VENUS

Since that day when I kissed Madame de B. right on the centre of the
neck, as she held out her forehead to me, there has crept into our
intercourse an indescribable, coquettish coolness, which is nevertheless
by no means unpleasant. The matter of the kiss has never been completely
explained. It happened just as I left Saint-Cyr. I was full of ardor,
and the cravings of my heart sometimes blinded me. I say that they
sometimes blinded me; I repeat, blinded me, and this is true, for really
I must have been possessed to have kissed my aunt on the neck as I did
that day. But let that pass.

It was not that she was hardly worth it; my little auntie, as I used to
call her then, was the prettiest woman in the world--coquettish, elegant;
and what a foot! and, above all, that delightful little--I don't know
what--which is so fashionable now, and which tempts one always to say too
much.