We had reached our destination, and before we were aware of it, we had entered the court of the chateau.  The whole place was brightly lit up.  Everything wore a festal air, excepting the face of its master, who at the sight of me seemed anything but delighted.  He came forward and expressed in somewhat hesitating terms the tenderness proper to the occasion of a reconciliation.  I understood later on that this reconciliation was absolutely necessary from family reasons.  I was presented to him and was coldly greeted.  He extended his hand to his wife, and I followed the two, thinking of my part in the past, in the present and in the future.  I passed through apartments decorated with exquisite taste.  The master in this respect had gone beyond all the ordinary refinement of luxury, in the hope of reanimating, by the influence of voluptuous imagery, a physical nature that was dead.  Not knowing what to say, I took refuge in expressions of admiration.  The goddess of the temple, who was quite ready to do the honors, accepted my compliments.

“You have not seen anything,” she said.  “I must take you to the apartments of my husband.”

“Madame, five years ago I caused them to be pulled down.”

“Oh!  Indeed!” said she.

At the dinner, what must she do but offer the master some fish, on which he said to her: 

“Madame, I have been living on milk for the last three years.”

“Oh!  Indeed!” she said again.

Can any one imagine three human beings as astonished as we were to find ourselves gathered together?  The husband looked at me with a supercilious air, and I paid him back with a look of audacity.

Madame de T----- smiled at me and was charming to me; Monsieur de
T----- accepted me as a necessary evil.  Never in all my life have I
taken part in a dinner which was so odd as that.  The dinner ended, I
thought that we would go to bed early—­that is, I thought that
Monsieur de T----- would.  As we entered the drawing-room: 

“I appreciate, madame,” said he, “your precaution in bringing this gentleman with you.  You judged rightly that I should be but poor company for the evening, and you have done well, for I am going to retire.”

Then turning to me, he added in a tone of profound sarcasm: 

“You will please to pardon me, and obtain also pardon from madame.”

He left us.  My reflections?  Well, the reflections of a twelvemonth were then comprised in those of a minute.  When we were left alone, Madame de T----- and I, we looked at each other so curiously that, in order to break through the awkwardness, she proposed that we should take a turn on the terrace while we waited, as she said, until the servants had supped.