hotel standing at the corner of a vast square, and
ordered lunch. When they had finished dessert, Jeanne got up to go and
wander about the town, but Julien, taking her in his arms, whispered
tenderly in her ear:

"Shall we go upstairs for a little while, my pet?"

"Go upstairs?" she said, with surprise; "but I am not at all tired."

He pressed her to him: "Don't you understand? For two days--"

She blushed crimson.

"Oh, what would everyone say? what would they think? You could not ask
for a bedroom in the middle of the day. Oh, Julien, don't say anything
about it now, please don't."

"Do you think I care what the hotel-people say or think?" he
interrupted. "You'll see what difference they make to me." And he rang
the bell.

She did not say anything more, but sat with downcast eyes, disgusted at
her husband's desires, to which she always submitted with a feeling of
shame and degradation; her senses were not yet aroused, and her husband
treated her as if she shared all his ardors. When the waiter answered
the bell, Julien asked him to show them to their room; the waiter, a man
of true Corsican type, bearded to the eyes, did not understand, and kept
saying that the room would be quite ready by the evening. Julien got out
of patience.

"Get it ready at once," he said. "The journey has tired us and we want
to rest."

A slight smile crept over the waiter's face, and Jeanne would have liked
to run away; when they came downstairs again, an hour later, she hardly
dared pass the servants, feeling sure that they would whisper and laugh
behind her back. She felt vexed with Julien for not understanding her
feelings, and wondering at his want of delicacy; it raised a sort of
barrier between them, and, for the first time, she understood that two
people can never be in perfect sympathy; they may pass through life side
by side, seemingly in perfect union, but neither quite understands the
other, and every soul must of necessity be for ever lonely.

They stayed three days in the little town which was like a furnace, for
every breath of wind was shut out by the mountains. Then they made out a
plan of the places they should visit, and decided to hire some horses.
They started one morning at daybreak on the two wiry little Corsican
horses they had obtained, and accompanied by a guide mounted on a mule
which also carried some provisions, for inns are unknown in this wild
country. At first the road ran along the bay, but soon it