ing, mamma!" she cried, "wait till we have finished this
play."

That second's distraction lost her the game. The ball passed against
her, almost rolling, touched the ground and went out of the game.

Bertin shouted "Won!" and the young girl, surprised, accused him of
having profited by her inattention. Julio, trained to seek and find the
lost balls, as if they were partridges fallen among the bushes, sprang
behind her to get the ball rolling in the grass, seized it in his jaws,
and brought it back, wagging his tail.

The painter now saluted the Countess, but, urged to resume the game,
animated by the contest, pleased to find himself so agile, he threw only
a short, preoccupied glance at the face prepared so carefully for him,
asking:

"Will you allow me, dear Countess? I am afraid of taking cold and having
neuralgia."

"Oh, yes," the Countess replied.

She sat down on a hay-stack, mowed that morning in order to give a clear
field to the players, and, her heart suddenly touched with sadness,
looked on at the game.

Her daughter, irritated at losing continually, grew more animated,
excited, uttered cries of vexation or of triumph, and flew impetuously
from one end of the court to the other. Often, in her swift movements,
little locks of hair were loosened, rolled down and fell upon her
shoulders. She seized them with impatient movements, and, holding the
racket between her knees, fastened them up in place, thrusting hairpins
into the golden mass.

And Bertin, from his position, cried to the Countess:

"Isn't she pretty like that, and fresh as the day?"

Yes, she was young, she could run, grow warm, become red, let her hair
fly, brave anything, dare everything, for all that only made her more
beautiful.

Then, when they resumed their play with ardor, the Countess, more and
more melancholy, felt that Olivier preferred that game, that childish
sport, like the play of kittens jumping after paper balls, to the
sweetness of sitting beside her that warm morning, and feeling her
loving pressure against him.

When the bell, far away, rang the first signal for breakfast, it seemed
to her that someone had freed her, that a weight had been lifted from
her heart. But as she returned, leaning on his arm, he said to her:

"I have been amusing myself like a boy. It is a great thing to be, or to
feel oneself, young. Ah, yes, there is nothing like that. When we do not
like to run any more, it is all over with us."

When