The word ‘marriage’ exploded in my brain and I was even more dumbfounded than the day when, in the middle of a lesson, a schoolmate had begun to bark like a dog. How could one superimpose the image of a pink, soft body lying with a naked man upon this well-behaved young lady with the studied smile standing there in a smart hat and neatly buttoned gloves? I didn’t go as far as to undress Marguerite in my mind’s eye: but I saw her in a long, transparent nightdress, her hair spread out over the pillow, offering up her body.
