I promised Madame de Marsan to do my best to make myself worthy to appear upon her stage; and we left it, to stroll through the garden. It was almost a park; it was possible to lose one's self there, and I hoped to take advantage of that fact. There was a little clump of trees, a grotto, a bridge, which lacked nothing but water, dense, bosky groves, shaded paths, turf that was always green, several pretty little elevations, a subterranean path, a cliff, a waterfall, and all the games that can be played in a garden. It was a delicious spot, into which it seemed to me that ennui could never find its way. Madame de Marsan gave me a small bedroom overlooking the fields. I should have been delighted with it, except that it was a long way from hers. I reproached her for it, and she answered with a jest. Patience! perhaps my turn would come. Meanwhile, it was incumbent on me to learn my part. Madame de Marsan wished to rehearse some scenes that night, and she left me to study. No constraint, no etiquette in the country. "Here," she said, "everyone does what he pleases--rises in the morning, goes out to walk, stays in the house, goes away, returns, as his fancy bids him. So long as you are prompt at meals, and, above all, at rehearsals, you are absolutely your own master." I promised to conform to the established rules, and buried myself among the trees to study the rôle of Almaviva. But the thought that I was alone in that house with Madame de Marsan--for servants and workmen do not count--that thought made my mind wander. What! I was under the same roof with a pretty woman, who allowed me to make love to her without apparent displeasure, who seemed indeed to manifest something more than interest in me--and I could be satisfied with anything less than a complete victory!--I saw that I had to do with an accomplished coquette, who perhaps pretended to be sensible to my attentions in order to keep me bound to her chariot for a longer time.