rtreuse from time to time, as
they smoked their cigarettes, and they were talking most confidentially,
telling each other details which nothing but this charming intoxication
could have induced their pretty lips to utter.

Their husbands had returned to Paris that afternoon, and had left them
alone on that little deserted beach, which they had chosen so as to
avoid those gallant marauders who are constantly met with in fashionable
watering places. As they were absent for five days in the week, they
objected to country excursions, luncheons on the grass, swimming lessons
and those sudden familiarities which spring up in the idle life of
watering places. Dieppe, Etratat, Trouville seemed to them to be places
to be avoided, and they had rented a house which had been built and
abandoned by an eccentric individual in the valley of Roqueville, near
Fecamp, and there they buried their wives for the whole summer.

They were drunk. Not knowing what to hit upon to amuse themselves, the
little Baroness had suggested a good dinner and champagne. To begin
with, they had found great amusement in cooking this dinner themselves,
and then they had eaten it merrily, and had drunk freely, in order to
allay the thirst which the heat of the fire had excited. Now they were
chatting and talking nonsense, while gently gargling their throats with
Chartreuse. In fact they did not in the least know any longer what they
were saying.

The Countess, with her legs in the air on the back of a chair, was
further gone than her friend.

"To complete an evening like this," she said, "we ought to have a lover
apiece. If I had foreseen this some time ago, I would have sent for a
couple from Paris, and I would have let you have one...." "I can always
find one," the other replied; "I could have one this very evening, if I
wished." "What nonsense! At Roqueville, my dear? It would have to be
some peasant, then." "No, not altogether." "Well, tell me all about it."
"What do you want me to tell you?" "About your lover." "My dear, I do
not want to live without being loved, for I should fancy I was dead if I
were not loved." "So should I." "Is not that so?" "Yes. Men cannot
understand it! And especially our husbands!" "No, not in the least. How
can you expect it to be different? The love which we want is made up of
being spoilt, of gallantries and of pretty words and actions. That is
the nourishment of our hearts; it is indispensable to our life,
indispensable,