asants would still wear their picturesque costumes of other times. But
we should not see them."

"What does it matter?" replied Madame Raymond. "We could imagine them."

"But," asked the Princess Seniavine, "do you ever see interesting things?
I never do."

Madame Raymond, who had taken from her husband's books a vague tint of
philosophy, declared that things were nothing, and that the idea was
everything.

Without looking at Madame Berthier-d'Eyzelles, seated at her right, the
Countess Martin murmured:

"Oh, yes, people see only their ideas; they follow only their ideas. They
go along, blind and deaf. One can not stop them."

"But, my dear," said Count Martin, placed in front of her, by the
Princess's side, "without leading ideas one would go haphazard. Have you
read, Montessuy, the speech delivered by Loyer at the unveiling of the
Cadet-Gassicourt statue? The beginning is remarkable. Loyer is not
lacking in political sense."

The carriage, having traversed the fields bordered with willows, went up
a hill and advanced on a vast, wooded plateau. For a long time it skirted
the walls of the park.

"Is it the Guerric?" asked the Princess Seniavine.

Suddenly, between two stone pillars surmounted by lions, appeared the
closed gate. At the end of a long alley stood the gray stones of a
castle.

"Yes," said Montessuy, "it is the Guerric."

And, addressing Therese:

"You knew the Marquis de Re? At sixty-five he had retained his strength
and his youth. He set the fashion and was loved. Young men copied his
frockcoat, his monocle, his gestures, his exquisite insolence, his
amusing fads. Suddenly he abandoned society, closed his house, sold his
stable, ceased to show himself. Do you remember, Therese, his sudden
disappearance? You had been married a short time. He called on you often.
One fine day people learned that he had quitted Paris. This is the place
where he had come in winter. People tried to find a reason for his sudden
retreat; some thought he had run away under the influence of sorrow or
humiliation, or from fear that the world might see him grow old. He was
afraid of old age more than of anything else. For seven years he has
lived in retirement from society; he has not gone out of the castle once.
He receives at the Guerric two or three old men who were his companions
in youth. This gate is opened for them only. Since his retirement no one
has seen him; no one ever will see him. He shows the same care t