Guy de Maupassant
The young Marquise of Rennedon was still asleep, in her closed and scented chamber, in her large, soft, low bed, in her sheets of light batiste—fine as lace, gentle as a kiss. She slept alone, calm, with the happy, deep sleep of the divorcee.
Voices awoke her, speaking animatedly in the little blue drawing room. She recognized her dear friend, the young Baroness de Grangerie, arguing to get in with the maid, who was guarding her mistress’s door.
So the young marquise rose, slid back the bolts, turned the lock, lifted the curtain, and showed her head—only her head, fair-haired, hidden beneath a cloud of hair.
“What’s gotten into you,” she said, “coming so early? It isn’t even nine o’clock yet.”