high noon under the arcades of Roman ruins; drolleries all of which the romantic Samuel, one of the last romantics possessed by France, very much adored.

So much so, that having run down Fanfarlo for three months, he fell madly in love with her, and she finally wanted to know who was the monster, the heart of bronze, the pedant, the half-wit who so obstinately denied the royalty of her genius.

This much justice must be accorded to Fanfarlo; all that actuated her was idle curiosity, nothing more. Had such a man really a nose in the middle of his face, and was he shaped quite like his fellow-beings? When, after having made one or two inquiries about Samuel, and learnt that he was a man like any other, of some sense and some talent, she understood vaguely that there was some mystery, and that this terrible Monday article might very well be only a peculiar sort of weekly bouquet, or the visiting card of an obstinate suitor.

He found her one evening in her box. Two great candles and a big fire made their lights flicker on the motley costumes which littered this boudoir.

The queen of the place, about to leave the theatre, was reassuming the garb of an ordinary mortal and, crouched in a chair, was putting on her shoes, shamelessly revealing an adorable leg; her hands, plumply slender, made the lace of the buskin play through the eyelet holes like an agile shuttle, without a thought of the skirt which should have been pulled down. The leg was already for Samuel an object of eternal desire. Long, slender, strong, plump yet sinewy, it had all the correctness of the beautiful, and all the wanton allure of the pretty. Had it been dissected perpendicularly at its widest place, this leg would have offered a sort of triangle whose apex would have been situated on the tibia, and of which the rounded line of the calf would have furnished the convex base. A regular man’s leg is too hard, the women’s legs drawn by Devéria are too soft to give you an idea of it.

In this agreeable attitude, her head, bent towards her foot, displayed a proconsular neck, broad and strong, and allowed one to guess at the line of the shoulder-blades covered with brown abundant flesh. The thick, heavy hair fell forward on both sides, tickling her bosom and blinding her eyes, so that at every other moment she had to disturb and toss it back. A petulant, charming impatience, like that of a spoiled child who finds that things are not going fast enough, animated the whole creature and her clothing, and at every instant disclosed new points of view, new effects of line and colour.

Samuel stopped respectfully, or pretended to stop respectfully; for with this confounded fellow the great problem is always to know where the actor begins.

‘Ah! there you are, monsieur!’ she said to him without disturbing herself, though she had been told a few minutes previously about Samuel’s visit. ‘You’ve something to ask me, haven’t you?’

The sublime impudence of these words went straight to poor Samuel’s heart; he had chattered like a romantic magpie for a whole week at Madame de Cosmelly’s; here he quietly replied:

‘Yes, madame!’

And tears came to his eyes.

That had an enormous success. Fanfarlo smiled.

‘And what insect has been stinging you, monsieur, that you bite at me so savagely? What a frightful profession—’

‘Frightful indeed, madame. The fact is, I adore you.’


  By PanEris using Melati.

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