But just as she had finished speaking, and was pressing with devotion the hand of Philippe who trembled in his skin, appeared the fat Bishop of Coire, indignant and angry. The officers followed him, bearing a trout canonically dressed, fresh from the Rhine, and shining in a golden platter, and spices contained in little ornamental boxes, and a thousand dainties, such as liqueurs and jams, made by the holy nuns at his Abbey.
“Ah, ah!” said he, with his deep voice, “I haven’t time to go to the devil, but you must give me a touch of him in advance, eh! my little one.”
“Your belly will one day make a nice sheath for a sword,” replied she, knitting her brows above her eyes, which from being soft and gentle had become mischievous enough to make one tremble.
“And this little chorus singer is here to offer that?” said the bishop, insolently turning his great rubicund face towards Philippe.
“Monseigneur, I’m here to confess Madame.”
“Oh, oh, do you not know the canons? To confess the ladies at this time of night is a right reserved to bishops, so take yourself off; go and herd with simple monks, and never come back here again under pain of excommunication.”
“Do not move,” cried the blushing Imperia, more lovely with passion than she was with love, because now she was possessed both with passion and love. “Stop, my friend. Here you are in your own house.” Then he knew that he was really loved by her.
“It is it not in the breviary, and an evangelical regulation, that you should be equal with God in the valley of Jehoshaphat?” asked she of the bishop.
“‘Tis is an invention of the devil, who has adulterated the holy book,” replied the great numskull of a bishop in a hurry to fall to.
“Well then, be equal now before me, who am here below your goddess,” replied Imperia, “otherwise one of these days I will have you delicately strangled between the head and shoulders; I swear it by the power of my tonsure which is as good as the pope’s.” And wishing that the trout should be added to the feast as well as the sweets and other dainties, she added, cunningly, “Sit you down and drink with us.” But the artful minx, being up to a trick or
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