“I would never have believed that my uncle was such a dashing blade?” said the nephew.

We made a halt, and while we were sitting on the edge of a green forest clearing, the count led us on to discourse about women just as Brantome and Aloysia might have done.

“You fellows are very happy under the present government!—­the women of the time are well mannered” (in order to appreciate the exclamation of the old gentleman, the reader should have heard the atrocious stories which the captain had been relating).  “And this,” he went on, “is one of the advantages resulting from the Revolution.  The present system gives very much more charm and mystery to passion.  In former times women were easy; ah! indeed, you would not believe what skill it required, what daring, to wake up those worn-out hearts; we were always on the qui vive.  But yet in those days a man became celebrated for a broad joke, well put, or for a lucky piece of insolence.  That is what women love, and it will always be the best method of succeeding with them!”

These last words were uttered in a tone of profound contempt; he stopped, and began to play with the hammer of his gun as if to disguise his deep feeling.

“But nonsense,” he went on, “my day is over!  A man ought to have the body as well as the imagination young.  Why did I marry?  What is most treacherous in girls educated by mothers who lived in that brilliant era of gallantry, is that they put on an air of frankness, of reserve; they look as if butter would not melt in their mouths, and those who know them well feel that they would swallow anything!”

He rose, lifted his gun with a gesture of rage, and dashing it to the ground thrust it far up the butt in the moist sod.

“It would seem as if my dear aunt were fond of a little fun,” said the officer to me in a low voice.

“Or of denouements that do not come off!” I added.

The nephew tightened his cravat, adjusted his collar and gave a jump like a Calabrian goat.  We returned to the chateau at about two in the afternoon.  The count kept me with him until dinner-time, under the pretext of looking for some medals, of which he had spoken during our return home.  The dinner was dull.  The countess treated her nephew with stiff and cold politeness.  When we entered the drawing-room the count said to his wife: 

“Are you going to play backgammon?—­We will leave you.”

The young countess made no reply.  She gazed at the fire, as if she had not heard.  Her husband took some steps towards the door, inviting me by the wave of his hand to follow him.  At the sound of his footsteps, his wife quickly turned her head.

“Why do you leave us?” said she, “you will have all tomorrow to show your friend the reverse of the medals.”