“All I ask,” I said, raising my eyes to hers, which mine now met for the second time in a glance as rapid as lightning,—­“is to rest here.  I am so crippled with fatigue I really cannot walk farther.”

“You must not doubt the hospitality of our beautiful Touraine,” she said; then, turning to my companion, she added:  “You will give us the pleasure of your dining at Clochegourde?”

I threw such a look of entreaty at Monsieur de Chessel that he began the preliminaries of accepting the invitation, though it was given in a manner that seemed to expect a refusal.  As a man of the world, he recognized these shades of meaning; but I, a young man without experience, believed so implicitly in the sincerity between word and thought of this beautiful woman that I was wholly astonished when my host said to me, after we reached home that evening, “I stayed because I saw you were dying to do so; but if you do not succeed in making it all right, I may find myself on bad terms with my neighbors.”  That expression, “if you do not make it all right,” made me ponder the matter deeply.  In other words, if I pleased Madame de Mortsauf, she would not be displeased with the man who introduced me to her.  He evidently thought I had the power to please her; this in itself gave me that power, and corroborated my inward hope at a moment when it needed some outward succor.

“I am afraid it will be difficult,” he began; “Madame de Chessel expects us.”

“She has you every day,” replied the countess; “besides, we can send her word.  Is she alone?”

“No, the Abbe de Quelus is there.”

“Well, then,” she said, rising to ring the bell, “you really must dine with us.”

This time Monsieur de Chessel thought her in earnest, and gave me a congratulatory look.  As soon as I was sure of passing a whole evening under that roof I seemed to have eternity before me.  For many miserable beings to-morrow is a word without meaning, and I was of the number who had no faith in it; when I was certain of a few hours of happiness I made them contain a whole lifetime of delight.

Madame de Mortsauf talked about local affairs, the harvest, the vintage, and other matters to which I was a total stranger.  This usually argues either a want of breeding or great contempt for the stranger present who is thus shut out from the conversation, but in this case it was embarrassment.  Though at first I thought she treated me as a child and I envied the man of thirty to whom she talked of serious matters which I could not comprehend, I came, a few months later, to understand how significant a woman’s silence often is, and how many thoughts a voluble conversation masks.  At first I attempted to be at my ease and take part in it, then I perceived the advantages of my situation and gave myself up to the charm of listening to Madame de Mortsauf’s voice.  The breath of her soul rose and fell among the syllables as sound is divided by the notes of a flute; it died