it, gathering to itself every hope that came in its way.

Add to this that from the place where I was I could see on the shore
a charming little house of two stories, with a semicircular railing;
through the railing, in front of the house, a green lawn, smooth as
velvet, and behind the house a little wood full of mysterious retreats,
where the moss must efface each morning the pathway that had been
made the day before. Climbing flowers clung about the doorway of this
uninhabited house, mounting as high as the first story.

I looked at the house so long that I began by thinking of it as mine, so
perfectly did it embody the dream that I was dreaming; I saw Marguerite
and myself there, by day in the little wood that covered the hillside,
in the evening seated on the grass, and I asked myself if earthly
creatures had ever been so happy as we should be.

"What a pretty house!" Marguerite said to me, as she followed the
direction of my gaze and perhaps of my thought.

"Where?" asked Prudence.

"Yonder," and Marguerite pointed to the house in question.

"Ah, delicious!" replied Prudence. "Do you like it?"

"Very much."

"Well, tell the duke to take it for you; he would do so, I am sure. I'll
see about it if you like."

Marguerite looked at me, as if to ask me what I thought. My dream
vanished at the last words of Prudence, and brought me back to reality
so brutally that I was still stunned with the fall.

"Yes, yes, an excellent idea," I stammered, not knowing what I was
saying.

"Well, I will arrange that," said Marguerite, freeing my hand, and
interpreting my words according to her own desire. "Let us go and see if
it is to let."

The house was empty, and to let for two thousand francs.

"Would you be happy here?" she said to me.

"Am I sure of coming here?"

"And for whom else should I bury myself here, if not for you?"

"Well, then, Marguerite, let me take it myself."

"You are mad; not only is it unnecessary, but it would be dangerous. You
know perfectly well that I have no right to accept it save from one man.
Let me alone, big baby, and say nothing."

"That means," said Prudence, "that when I have two days free I will come
and spend them with you."

We left the house, and started on our return to Paris, talking over
the new plan. I held Marguerite in my arms, and as I got down from the
carriage, I had already begun to look upon her arrangement with less
critical eyes.

Chapter 17

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