ante-chamber, which was lighted up by a Chinese lantern. Thence they entered the bedroom, which received the light from a lamp of rose-coloured Bohemian glass, and at last the Countess opened the door of a dining room, with a table ready served.
“Dear love,” said she “by your leave we will be our own attendants. I should be glad to keep on my gentleman's attire in order to wait upon you, but it would be inconvenient. I will therefore lay aside that horrid masculine dress, and appear in my war harness. Here is the dressing room. I believe it has every convenience, and that you will find all that is necessary.”
We have already been introduced to the dressing room of the Countess. It was the very same to which she had taken Violette. A slab of white marble bore bottles of the finest scents from Dubues, Laboullee and Guerlain.
Five minutes after, Odette joined her friend there.
She was nude; at least very nearly so, for she had kept on her rose-coloured silk stockings, blue velvet garters, and slippers of the same material and colour.
It goes without saying that the whole place was heated by a well-regulated warming apparatus.
“You must excuse my dress,” said the Countess, laughingly, “but I wish to make a toilette which you rendered necessary, and ask you what scent you prefer.”
“Can I make my own choice?” said Florence.
“Please yourself,” replied the Countess.
“Well, I perceive there a bottle of eau-de-Cologne. What say you?”
That is not my business,” said the Countess. “Let your choice be guided by your own taste.”
Florence poured out the contents of an immense water bottle into a charming bidet of Sevres porcelain, mixed a fourth part of the bottle of eau-de-Cologne with it, and proceeded to the Countess' toilette.
“Well,” asked the latter, laughing, “what are you doing?”
“I am looking at you, my beautiful mistress, and I admire you!”
“So much the better for you, since I am yours, all in all.”
“What marvellous hair! What teeth! What a neck! Oh, let me kiss those pretty nipples. You will think I am hideous, I am sure. I shall never dare to undress in your presence. What a satin-like skin! I shall look like a negress! And all this beautiful fiery-coloured hair! How marvellous! I shall look like a sweep in comparison.”
“You are joking; but do not make me wait. If my hair is the colour of fire, it is because the house is on fire! Now, you must put it out.”
The Countess bent forward and her lips met those of Florence, whom she clasped in her arms, then, suddenly rising and resting both hands on her shoulders, she brought her streaming and perfumed body on a level with her lips.
Florence at once pressed her lips to that second mouth, more perfumed still than the other, and which presented itself so unexpectedly; then advancing on her knees while the Countess walked backwards, she pushed the latter to a couch where she fell back, like one of the gladiators of old, with all the gracefulness required in such circumstances.
However little the Countess was used to playing a passive part in encounters of this description, she quickly understood that the dark complexioned and thin woman was endowed with a power of manhood superior to that which she herself possessed. She surrendered in this instance with the same readiness as before, and as the new agent of pleasure was more active and more complicated than its predecessor, she acknowledged its superiority by motions of her body which could not possibly leave Florence in doubt as to the intensity of the pleasurable sensations which she gave the Countess.
For a few seconds the two beautiful women remained motionless. Everybody knows that, in this peculiar mode of procuring Love's pleasures, the sensations of both giver and recipient are alike.
Florence was the first to recover from her trance. She remained for some few seconds on her knees before the Countess, and her eyes, her countenance, her smile, her arms, which in her exhaustion, hung motionless by her sides, all seemed to bear witness to her delight.
Wholly insensible to beauty in man, because she was almost a man herself, Florence worshipped beauty in women; however, she now felt a little uneasy fearing that her type of beauty might not be altogether to the taste of the Countess, a circumstance which the proud girl would have deemed very humiliating.
Thus, when she had recovered, and when the Countess began to disrobe her, Florence set herself to tremble in all her limbs, like a virgin whose unsullied body is about to be defiled by eyes other than her mother's.
But the Countess was impatient. The delightful emanations from Florence's body got into her head and seemed to intoxicate her.
“Come!” she said with a feverish impatience: “Art thou not a woman? Art thou a flower? So be it; then, instead of drinking I shall inhale. Oh! the beautiful, curious thing!” she exclaimed, when she saw Florence's naked body. “Why, that is like silk, like perfumed silk! What is the meaning of it?”
Thereupon the Countess began covering with kisses the charming ornament, which, as we said before, rose to a point as far as the breasts, getting thinner on the stomach and wider lower down, and on which when leaving her box, Florence had scattered a whole bouquet of newly gathered violets.
“Come!” said the astonished Countess; “I confess I am vanquished. Not only are you far more handsome than I am, but you are much prettier!”
Then she led her to the dining room. Both naked, they entered the palace of mirrors, where a thousand crystals reflected at once their beautiful forms and the lights of the chandeliers and lustres.
They looked at one another for some little time, their arms encircling each other's waists; each proud of her own beauty and that of her companion; then they took two white haicks, one with gold stripes, the other ornamented with silver, as transparent as woven air, and they sat down to supper. All the dishes were most dainty. The iced champagne sparkled in muslin-like decanters, and they began to sip the exhilarating beverage from the same glass, and often from each other's lips.
CHAPTER IX
At first they were attentive to one another as lovers would be together, helping one another to small dainties and tidbits, intermixed with burning kisses on the arms, shoulders and lips. Then, after supper, they rose, letting their haicks fall to the floor, the Countess like the goddess Pomona, bearing away some fruit in a basket of golden filigree, and Florence holding in her hand a cup brimming over with sparkling champagne.
They approached the bed with arms encircling each other's waists. Then they looked at one another, as if to say: “Who is going to begin?”
“Ah!” said the Countess, “I think I must begin.”
No doubt Florence was satisfied with the reply, for she pressed her lips to those of the Countess, imprinting a burning kiss on her mouth, and she lay on the bed in a posture full of abandon.
The Countess gazed for a moment on the strange form, in which were combined the virility of the man and the gracefulness of woman. She took from her hair the golden comb studded with diamonds, and laid it as a crown on the charming representative of the mysterious Isis, who, foremost of all goddesses, was worshipped under the name of Saunia.
The gold and diamonds sparkled in the black fur, and the comb almost disappeared in it, without reaching however to the aperture which the jealous Countess would have wished to encompass.
Then she went on her knees, and as the magnificent ornament which she had just added to the shrine did not hinder her from paying her respects to it, she gently laid Florence's thighs on her two shoulders, and drew aside the thick fur which closed the entrance to the grotto disclosed to her view, like a casket of black velvet lined with rose- coloured satin.
At this unexpected sight the Countess gave an exclamation of pleasure, and at once began to apply her tongue to the pretty sanctuary; but, to her great astonishment, she preceived that the passage, which she thought free, was closed up. She rose quickly and looking eagerly at Florence, said:
“What does that mean?”
“Why, dear Odette,” said Florence laughing, “it means that I am a virgin, or if you prefer it, that I still have
