sides of the paling, both walking slowly. Having reached the end, we
could not help exchanging a few civil words; she found me in such deep
dejection, lost in such painful meditations, that she spoke to me of
hopefulness, in brief sentences that sounded like the songs with which
nurses lull their babies. I then leaped the fence, and found myself
for the second time at her side. The Countess led me into the house,
wishing to subdue my sadness. So at last I had penetrated the
sanctuary where everything was in harmony with the woman I have tried
to describe to you.

"Exquisite simplicity reigned there. The interior of the little house
was just such a dainty box as the art of the eighteenth century
devised for the pretty profligacy of a fine gentleman. The
dining-room, on the ground floor, was painted in fresco, with garlands
of flowers, admirably and marvelously executed. The staircase was
charmingly decorated in monochrome. The little drawing-room, opposite
the dining-room, was very much faded; but the Countess had hung it
with panels of tapestry of fanciful designs, taken off old screens. A
bath-room came next. Upstairs there was but one bedroom, with a
dressing-room, and a library which she used as her workroom. The
kitchen was beneath in the basement on which the house was raised, for
there was a flight of several steps outside. The balustrade of a
balcony in garlands a la Pompadour concealed the roof; only the lead
cornices were visible. In this retreat one was a hundred leagues from
Paris.

"But for the bitter smile which occasionally played on the beautiful
red lips of this pale woman, it would have been possible to believe
that this violet buried in her thicket of flowers was happy. In a few
days we had reached a certain degree of intimacy, the result of our