She woke up early, and opened her shutters, to breathe the fresh air, and saw him sitting collapsed on a garden bench at the end of the great alley.  At that hour—­you may imagine!  And the evening before he had declared himself indisposed.  She just hurried on some clothes and flew down to him.  One would be anxious for less.  He loves her, but not very intelligently.  He had been up all night, fully dressed, the poor old man, perfectly exhausted!  He wasn’t in a state to invent a plausible story....  What a confidant you chose there!...  My husband was furious!  He said:  ‘We can’t interfere now.’  So we sat down to wait.  It was awful.  And this poor child running over here publicly with her hair loose.  She has been seen by people in the fields.  She has roused the whole household, too.  It’s awkward for her.  Luckily you are to be married next week....  Adele, sit up.  He has come home on his own legs, thank God....  We expected you to come back on a stretcher perhaps—­what do I know?  Go and see if the carriage is ready.  I must take this child to her mother at once.  It isn’t proper for her to stay here a minute longer.”

General D’Hubert did not move.  It was as though he had heard nothing.  Madame Leonie changed her mind.

“I will go and see to it myself,” she said.  “I want also to get my cloak...  Adele...” she began, but did not say “sit up.”  She went out saying in a loud, cheerful tone:  “I leave the door open.”

General D’Hubert made a movement towards the divan, but then Adele sat up and that checked him dead.  He thought, “I haven’t washed this morning.  I must look like an old tramp.  There’s earth on the back of my coat, and pine needles in my hair.”  It occurred to him that the situation required a good deal of circumspection on his part.

“I am greatly concerned, mademoiselle,” he began timidly, and abandoned that line.  She was sitting up on the divan with her cheeks unusually pink, and her hair brilliantly fair, falling all over her shoulders—­which was a very novel sight to the general.  He walked away up the room and, looking out of the window for safety, said:  “I fear you must think I behaved like a madman,” in accents of sincere despair....  Then he spun round and noticed that she had followed him with her eyes.  They were not cast down on meeting his glance.  And the expression of her face was novel to him also.  It was, one might have said, reversed.  Her eyes looked at him with grave thoughtfulness, while the exquisite lines of her mouth seemed to suggest a restrained smile.  This change made her transcendental beauty much less mysterious, much more accessible to a man’s comprehension.  An amazing ease of mind came to the general—­and even some ease of manner.  He walked down the room with as much pleasurable excitement as he would have found in walking up to a battery vomiting death, fire, and smoke, then stood looking down with smiling eyes at the girl whose marriage with him (next week) had been so carefully arranged by the wise, the good, the admirable Leonie.