The two young women begin to throw their stock of flowers by handfuls, and receive a perfect hail of bouquets; then, after an hour of warfare, a little tired, they tell the coachman to drive along the road which follows the seashore.

The sun disappears behind Esterel, outlining the dark, rugged mountain against the sunset sky.  The clear blue sea, as calm as a mill-pond, stretches out as far as the horizon, where it blends with the sky; and the fleet, anchored in the middle of the bay, looks like a herd of enormous beasts, motionless on the water, apocalyptic animals, armored and hump-backed, their frail masts looking like feathers, and with eyes which light up when evening approaches.

The two young women, leaning back under the heavy robes, look out lazily over the blue expanse of water.  At last one of them says: 

“How delightful the evenings are!  How good everything seems!  Don’t you think so, Margot?”

“Yes, it is good.  But there is always something lacking.”

“What is lacking?  I feel perfectly happy.  I don’t need anything else.”

“Yes, you do.  You are not thinking of it.  No matter how contented we may be, physically, we always long for something more—­for the heart.”

The other asked with a smile: 

“A little love?”

“Yes.”

They stopped talking, their eyes fastened on the distant horizon, then the one called Marguerite murmured:  “Life without that seems to me unbearable.  I need to be loved, if only by a dog.  But we are all alike, no matter what you may say, Simone.”

“Not at all, my dear.  I had rather not be loved at all than to be loved by the first comer.  Do you think, for instance, that it would be pleasant to be loved by—­by—­”

She was thinking by whom she might possibly be loved, glancing across the wide landscape.  Her eyes, after traveling around the horizon, fell on the two bright buttons which were shining on the back of the coachman’s livery, and she continued, laughing:  “by my coachman?”

Madame Margot barely smiled, and said in a low tone of voice: 

“I assure you that it is very amusing to be loved by a servant.  It has happened to me two or three times.  They roll their eyes in such a funny manner—­it’s enough to make you die laughing!  Naturally, the more in love they are, the more severe one must be with them, and then, some day, for some reason, you dismiss them, because, if anyone should notice it, you would appear so ridiculous.”

Madame Simone was listening, staring straight ahead of her, then she remarked: 

“No, I’m afraid that my footman’s heart would not satisfy me.  Tell me how you noticed that they loved you.”

“I noticed it the same way that I do with other men—­when they get stupid.”

“The others don’t seem stupid to me, when they love me.”

“They are idiots, my dear, unable to talk, to answer, to understand anything.”