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CHAPTER IV.
SATAN.
Suddenly the sleeper awoke. She sat up with a sudden and gracious
dignity of movement, her fair silken tresses falling in soft disorder.
Then stretching herself, she yawned like a tigress in the rising sun.
Perhaps Gwynplaine breathed heavily, as we do when we endeavour to
restrain our respiration.
"Is any one there?" said she.
She yawned as she spoke, and her very yawn was graceful. Gwynplaine
listened to the unfamiliar voice--the voice of a charmer, its accents
exquisitely haughty, its caressing intonation softening its native
arrogance. Then rising on her knees--there is an antique statue kneeling
thus in the midst of a thousand transparent folds--she drew the
dressing-gown towards her, and springing from the couch stood upright.
In the twinkling of an eye the silken robe was around her. The trailing
sleeve concealed her hands; only the tips of her toes, with little pink
nails like those of an infant, were left visible. Having drawn from
underneath the dressing-gown a mass of hair which had been imprisoned by
it, she crossed behind the couch to the end of the room, and placed her
ear to the painted mirror, which was, apparently, a door. Tapping the
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