arriage for the
railway station to catch a train for Roncieres; then, thinking that M.
de Guilleroy must return the next day, he resigned himself, and even
began to wish for the arrival of the husband with almost as much
impatience as if it were that of the wife herself.

Never had he liked Guilleroy as during those twenty-four hours of
waiting. When he saw him enter, he rushed toward him, with hands
extended, exclaiming:

"Ah, dear friend! how happy I am to see you!"

The other also seemed very glad, delighted above all things to return
to Paris, for life was not gay in Normandy during the three weeks he had
passed there.

The two men sat down on a little two-seated sofa in a corner of the
studio, under a canopy of Oriental stuffs, and again shook hands with
mutual sympathy.

"And the Countess?" asked Bertin, "how is she?"

"Not very well. She has been very much affected, and is recovering too
slowly. I must confess that I am a little anxious about her."

"But why does she not return?"

"I know nothing about it. It was impossible for me to induce her to
return here."

"What does she do all day?"

"Oh, heavens! She weeps, and thinks of her mother. That is not good for
her. I should like very much to have her decide to have a change of air,
to leave the place where that happened, you understand?"

"And Annette?"

"Oh, she is a blooming flower."

Olivier smiled with joy.

"Was she very much grieved?" he asked again.

"Yes, very much, very much, but you know that the grief of eighteen
years does not last long."

After a silence Guilleroy resumed:

"Where shall we dine, my dear fellow? I need to be cheered up, to hear
some noise and see some movement."

"Well, at this season, it seems to me that the Cafe des Ambassadeurs is
the right place."

So they set out, arm in arm, toward the Champs-Elysees. Guilleroy,
filled with the gaiety of Parisians when they return, to whom the city,
after every absence, seems rejuvenated and full of possible surprises,
questioned the painter about a thousand details of what people had been
doing and saying; and Olivier, after indifferent replies which betrayed
all the boredom of his solitude, spoke of Roncieres, tried to capture
from this man, in order to gather round him that almost tangible
something left with us by persons with whom we have recently been
associated, that subtle emanation of being one carries away when
leaving them, which remains with us a few hours