The Dulaurenses were noted for making their guests comfortable and for leaving them at liberty to amuse themselves. When Paule arrived with her brother and Jean, they had just finished a game of croquet and a circle was grouped around Isabelle Orlandi, who was talking in a low voice and waving her hands. “And his name is Landeau,” she was just saying. “Whose name?” asked Jean, as he joined the group of listeners. “My fiancé’s.” And the girl burst into a harsh, discordant laugh--almost a shriek. She gave her hand to the young man. “How do you do, Jean?” She called him by his Christian name, on the pretext of having met him once when he was quite a small boy. “Here is a red mallet. Let us stop this game. Nobody is interested in it now. Let us begin again. I shall take you on my side.” She rearranged the game as she wished and appeared for a minute to be very absorbed in it. Jean’s ball came to the rescue of hers, which with a skilful shot she had sent flying into the grass, far away from the hoops. They made the best use of this privacy for which they had been wishing. “Yes,” she said, and he noticed her pallor as she spoke--“I have to tell you of my coming marriage to a Lyons manufacturer. A business marriage!” “My congratulations.” “Thank you. He has several millions and some prosperous factories. He has promised my lawyer to make a good settlement. After that, you understand, it matters very little that he is ugly, in the forties, and burdened with a ridiculous name.” “Of course.” “Isn’t that so?” They were recalled and scolded for delaying. In vain their partners tried to revive their interest. It was entirely their fault that their side lost the game. Going back to the drawing-room for refreshments, they managed to precede the many groups slowly making their way up the lawn and went round the villa. Thus they arrived last. As they were walking Isabelle suddenly asked her companion: “Jean, can you understand that one might marry with love in one’s heart?” “Love for one’s husband, do you mean?” “You are joking.” He was indeed joking, not wishing to understand. But, as at the very moment he was looking at an ugly slug dragging itself over a rose in the courtyard, he felt very tenderly and regretfully for Isabelle’s sacrificed beauty. “Better to love before than after,” was all he could say in the end. “Oh, if you love before you love after, too.” He turned the conversation, for he was struggling against his feelings. Never had he experienced such a passion for that masterful profile, those bold eyes, those red and sensual lips, those brilliant teeth, all that abounding youthful grace. “Am I not a wizard? I foretold your marriage that evening in the railway carriage.” “Yes, my mother has often told me, ‘My dear, after a week all men are the same--fortune and youth are both fleeting things, but the first alone can bestow a prize upon the second.’” “Your mother is a wise woman,” said Jean.