.

She sat down thinking of it. Death! It was as if the world was going
to disappear from her; but no, since nothing would be changed in the
world, not even her bedroom. Yes, her room would remain just the
same, with the same bed, the same chairs, the same toilette
articles, but she would be forever gone, and no one would be sorry,
except her mother, perhaps.

People would say: "How pretty she was! that little Yvette," and
nothing more. And as she looked at her arm leaning on the arm of her
chair, she thought again, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. And again a
great shudder of horror ran over her whole body, and she did not
know how she could disappear without the whole earth being blotted
out, so much it seemed to her that she was a part of everything, of
the fields, of the air, of the sunshine, of life itself.

There were bursts of laughter in the garden, a great noise of voices
and of calls, the bustling gaiety of country house parties, and she
recognized the sonorous tones of M. de Belvigne, singing:

"I am underneath thy window, Oh, deign to show thy face." She rose,
without reflecting, and looked out. They all applauded. They were
all five there, with two gentlemen whom she did not know.

She brusquely withdrew, annoyed by the thought that these men had
come to amuse themselves at her mother's house, as at a public
place.

The bell sounded for breakfast. "I will show them how to die," she
said.

She went downstairs with a firm step, with something of the
resolution of the Christian martyrs going into the circus, where the
lions awaited them.

She pressed their hands, smiling in an affable but rather haughty
manner. Servigny asked her:

"Are you less cross to-day, Mam'zelle?"

She answered in a severe and peculiar tone: "Today, I am going to
commit follies. I am in my Paris mood, look out!"

Then turning toward Monsieur de Belvigne, she said:

"You shall be my escort, my little Malmsey. I will take you all
after breakfast to the fete at Marly."

There was, in fact, a fete at Marly. They introduced the two
newcomers to her, the Comte de Tamine and the Marquis de Briquetot.

During the meal, she said nothing further, strengthening herself to
be gay in the afternoon, so that no one should guess anything,--so
that they should be all the more astonished, and should say: "Who
would have thought it? She seemed so happy, so contented! What does
take place in those heads?"

She forced herself not to think