g for the baroness.

She was very young, hardly four-and-twenty, small, slight--too
slight--and very fair. She was a true Parisian doll: clever, spoiled,
elegant, coquettish, witty, with more charm than real beauty. He used to
say familiarly to his brother, when speaking of her:

"My wife is charming, attractive, but--there is nothing to lay hold of.
She is like a glass of champagne that is all froth; when you get to the
wine it is very good, but there is too little of it, unfortunately."

He walked up and down the room in great agitation, thinking of a
thousand things. At one moment he was furious, and felt inclined to give
the marquis a good thrashing, or to slap his face publicly, in the club.
But he decided that would not do, it would not be good form; he would be
laughed at, and not his rival, and this thought wounded his vanity. So
he went to bed, but could not sleep. Paris knew in a few days that the
Baron and Baroness d'Etraille had agreed to an amicable separation on
account of incompatibility of temper. No one suspected anything, no one
laughed, and no one was astonished.

The baron, however, to avoid meeting his wife, travelled for a year,
then spent the summer at the seaside, and the autumn in shooting,
returning to Paris for the winter. He did not meet the baroness once.

He did not even know what people said about her. In any case, she took
care to respect appearances, and that was all he asked for.

He became dreadfully bored, travelled again, restored his old castle of
Villebosc, which took him two years; then for over a year he entertained
friends there, till at last, tired of all these so-called pleasures, he
returned to his mansion in the Rue de Lille, just six years after the
separation.

He was now forty-five, with a good crop of gray hair, rather stout,
and with that melancholy look characteristic of those who have been
handsome, sought after, and liked, but who are deteriorating, daily.

A month after his return to Paris, he took cold on coming out of his
club, and had such a bad cough that his medical man ordered him to Nice
for the rest of the winter.

He reached the station only a few minutes before the departure of the
train on Monday evening, and had barely time to get into a carriage,
with only one other occupant, who was sitting in a corner so wrapped in
furs and cloaks that he could not even make out whether it was a man or
a woman, as nothing of the figure could be seen. When he