lined to give the Marquis a good thrashing or to smack his face
publicly, in the club. But he thought that would not do, it would not be
at all _the thing_; he would be laughed at, and not the Marquis, and as
he felt that his anger proceeded more from wounded vanity than from a
broken heart he went to bed, but could not go to sleep.

A few days afterwards it was known in Paris that the Baron and Baroness
d'Etraille had agreed to an amicable separation on account of
incompatibility of temper. Nobody suspected anything, nobody laughed,
and nobody was astonished.

The Baron, however, to avoid meeting her, traveled for a year, then he
spent the summer at the seaside, and the autumn in shooting, returning
to Paris for the winter. He did not meet his wife once.

He did not even know what people said about her. At any rate, she took
care to save appearances, and that was all he asked for.

He got dreadfully bored, traveled again, restored his old castle of
Villebosc, which took him two years; then for over a year he received
relays of friends there, till at last, tired of all these commonplace,
so-called pleasures, he returned to his mansion in the Rue de Lills,
just six years after their separation.

He was then forty-five, with a good crop of gray hair, rather stout, and
with that melancholy look of people who have been handsome, sought
after, and much liked, and who are deteriorating daily.

A month after his return to Paris he took cold on coming out of his
club, and had a bad cough, so his medical man ordered him to Nice for
the rest of the winter.

He started by the express on Monday evening. He was late, and got to the
station only a very short time before the departure of the train, and
had barely time to get into a carriage, with only one occupant, who was
sitting in a corner so wrapped in furs and cloaks that he could not even
make out whether it were a man or a woman, as nothing of the figure
could be seen. When he perceived that he could not find out, he put on
his traveling-cap, rolled himself up in his rugs, and stretched himself
out comfortably to sleep.

He did not wake up till the day was breaking, and looked immediately at
his fellow-traveler. He had not stirred all night, and seemed still to
be sound asleep.

M. d'Etraille made use of the opportunity to brush his hair and his
beard, and to try and freshen himself up a little generally, for a
night's traveling changes one's looks very much when one