Clotilde corroborated his accurate recital of the lines of a contested verse of the incomparable Heinrich, and they fell to capping verses of the poet-lucid metheglin, with here and there no dubious flavour of acid, and a lively sting in the tail of the honey.

Sentiment, cynicism, and satin impropriety and scabrous, are among those verses, where pure poetry has a recognized voice; but the lower elements constitute the popularity in a cultivated society inclining to wantonness out of bravado as well as by taste.

Alvan, looking indolently royal and royally roguish, quoted a verse that speaks of the superfluousness of a faithless lady's vowing bite: 'The kisses were in the course of things, The bite was a needless addition.' Clotilde could not repress her reddening--Count Kollin had repeated too much! She dropped her eyes, with a face of sculpture, then resumed their chatter.

He spared her the allusion to Pompeius.

She convinced him of her capacity for reserve besides intrepidity, and flattered him too with her blush.