The Countess de Mascaret came down just as her husband, who was coming home, appeared in the carriage entrance.  He stopped for a few moments to look at his wife and grew rather pale.  She was very beautiful, graceful and distinguished looking, with her long oval face, her complexion like gilt ivory, her large gray eyes and her black hair; and she got into her carriage without looking at him, without even seeming to have noticed him, with such a particularly high-bred air, that the furious jealousy by which he had been devoured for so long, again gnawed at his heart.  He went up to her and said:  “You are going for a drive?” She merely replied disdainfully:  “You see I am!” “In the Bois de Boulogne?” “Most probably.”  “May I come with you?” “The carriage belongs to you.”

Without being surprised at the tone of voice in which she answered him, he got in and sat down by his wife’s side, and said:  “Bois de Boulonge.”  The footman jumped up by the coachman’s side, and the horses as usual pawed the ground and shook their heads until they were in the street.  Husband and wife sat side by side, without speaking.  He was thinking how to begin a conversation, but she maintained such an obstinately hard look, that he did not venture to make the attempt.  At last, however, he cunningly, accidentally as it were, touched the Countess’s gloved hand with his own, but she drew her arm away with a movement which was so expressive of disgust, that he remained thoughtful, in spite of his usual authoritative and despotic character, and he said:  “Gabrielle!” “What do you want?” “I think you are looking adorable.”

She did not reply, but remained lying back in the carriage, looking like an irritated queen.  By that time they were driving up the Champs Elysees, towards the Arc de Triomphe.  That immense monument, at the end of the long avenue, raised its colossal arch against the red sky, and the sun seemed to be descending onto it, showering fiery dust on it from the sky.

The stream of carriages, with the sun reflecting from the bright, plated harness and the shining lamps, caused a double current to flow towards the town and towards the wood, and the Count de Mascaret continued:  “My dear Gabrielle!”

But then, unable to bear it any longer, she replied in an exasperated voice:  “Oh! do leave me in peace, pray; I am not even at liberty to have my carriage to myself, now.”  He, however, pretended not to hear her, and continued:  “You have never looked so pretty as you do to-day.”

Her patience was decidedly at an end, and she replied with irrepressible anger:  “You are wrong to notice it, for I swear to you, that I will never have anything to do with you in that way again.”  He was decidedly stupefied and agitated, and his violent nature gaining the upper hand, he exclaimed:  “What do you mean by that?” in such a manner as revealed rather the brutal master, than the amorous man.  But she replied in a low voice, so that the servants might not hear amidst the deafening noise of the wheels:  “Ah!  What do I mean by that?  What do I mean by that?  Now I recognize you again!  Do you want me to tell everything?” “Yes.”  “Everything that has been on my heart, since I have been the victim of your terrible selfishness?”