Happy to hear her spoken of, but jealous of that intimate happiness which Guilleroy praised as a matter of duty, the painter finally murmured, with sincere conviction: 

“Yes, indeed, you were the lucky one!”

The Deputy, flattered, assented to this; then he resumed: 

“I should like very much to see her return; indeed, I am a little anxious about her just now.  Wait—­since you are bored in Paris, you might go to Roncieres and bring her back.  She will listen to you, for you are her best friend; while a husband—­you know——­”

Delighted, Olivier replied:  “I ask nothing better.  But do you think it would not annoy her to see me arriving in that abrupt way?”

“No, not at all.  Go, by all means, my dear fellow.”

“Well, then, I will.  I will leave to-morrow by the one o’clock train.  Shall I send her a telegram?”

“No, I will attend to that.  I will telegraph, so that you will find a carriage at the station.”

As they had finished dinner, they strolled again up the Boulevard, but in half an hour the Count suddenly left the painter, under the pretext of an urgent affair that he had quite forgotten.

CHAPTER II

SPRINGTIME AND AUTUMN

The Countess and her daughter, dressed in black crape, had just seated themselves opposite each other, for breakfast, in the large dining-room at Roncieres.  The portraits of many ancestors, crudely painted, one in a cuirass, another in a tight-fitting coat, this a powdered officer of the French Guards, that a colonel of the Restoration, hung in line on the walls, a collection of deceased Guilleroys, in old frames from which the gilding was peeling.  Two servants, stepping softly, began to serve the two silent women, and the flies made a little cloud of black specks, dancing and buzzing around the crystal chandelier that hung over the center of the table.

“Open the windows,” said the Countess, “It is a little cool here.”

The three long windows, reaching from the floor to the ceiling, and large as bay-windows, were opened wide.  A breath of soft air, bearing the odor of warm grass and the distant sounds of the country, swept in immediately through these openings, mingling with the slightly damp air of the room, inclosed by the thick walls of the castle.

“Ah, that is good!” said Annette, taking a full breath.

The eyes of the two women had turned toward the outside and now gazed, beneath the blue sky, lightly veiled by the midday haze which was reflected on the meadows impregnated with sunshine, at the long and verdant lawns of the park, with its groups of trees here and there, and its perspective opening to the yellow fields, illuminated as far as the eye could see by the golden gleam of ripe grain.

“We will take a long walk after breakfast,” said the Countess.  “We might walk as far as Berville, following the river, for it will be too warm on the plain.”