Suffer me only to kiss your scarf."
"Oh, fie!" she said, with a commanding gesture, "I esteem you
enough to give you my hand."
She held it out for his kiss. A woman's hand, still moist from
the scented bath, has a soft freshness, a velvet smoothness that
sends a tingling thrill from the lips to the soul. And if a man
is attracted to a woman, and his senses are as quick to feel
pleasure as his heart is full of love, such a kiss, though chaste
in appearance, may conjure up a terrific storm.
"Will you always give it me like this?" the General asked
humbly when he had pressed that dangerous hand respectfully to
his lips.
"Yes, but there we must stop," she said, smiling. She sat
down, and seemed very slow over putting on her gloves, trying to
slip the unstretched kid over all her fingers at once, while she
watched M. de Montriveau; and he was lost in admiration of the
Duchess and those repeated graceful movements of hers.
"Ah! you were punctual," she said; "that is right. I like
punctuality. It is the courtesy of kings, His Majesty says; but
to my thinking, from you men it is the most respectful flattery
of all. Now, is it not? Just tell me."
Again she gave him a side glance to express her insidious
friendship, for he was dumb with happiness sheer happiness
through such nothings as these! Oh, the Duchess understood _son
metier de femme_--the art and mystery of being a woman--most
marvelously well; she knew, to admiration, how to raise a man in
his own esteem as he humbled himself to her; how to reward every
step of the descent to sentimental folly with hollow flatteries.
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