to the Countess, and mocking her with a madman's gesture and
grimace.

"For a fortnight I seemed to take no heed of my neighbor. Towards the
end of May, one lovely evening, we happened both to be out on opposite
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 close
neighborhood and of the Countess' conviction that I was indifferent to
women. A look would have spoilt all, and I never allowed a thought of
her to be seen in my eyes. Honorine chose to regard me as an old friend.
Her manner to me was the outcome of a kind of pity. Her looks, her
voice, her words, all showed that she was a hundred miles away from the
coquettish airs which the strictest virtue might have allowed under such
circumstances. She so