After luncheon Ducal asked me to lend him my automobile, for he wished to return to Paris that night. His many trunks, for which he had had no use, were placed on the machine, and after he had disappeared around the curve in the road, the wheels of the car crushing the fir boughs that had not yet been picked up, I breathed more easily, in fact I was conscious of a distinct sense of relief. Raymonde noticed the change at once. “Why were you not like this a little while ago?” she asked. “During the service you changed completely. Did you regret anything?” “Oh, Raymonde, what could I have regretted?” “Listen, I think I have guessed it,” she said. “You were looking at my white gown. Perhaps it did not become me very well.” “But, it did, I assure you.” “No, no, I know it,” she said. “But I should have grieved my little dressmaker in the village too much if I had given the order to any one else. What does a bad pleat amount to? But in the midst of happiness, to be neglectful of others, you agree with me that that would have been wicked?” I agreed with her, and moreover I did not discover the bad pleat again. It was as if it had disappeared with Pierre Ducal. Mme. Mairieux, to whom Col. Briare was telling stories of hunting in the forest of Fontainebleau, had followed the course of our conversation and now began to excuse her daughter. “I scolded her,” she said. “She is lacking in elegance. You will know how to give it to her.” “Is it necessary?” asked Raymonde, laughing. “Of course it is, in the world to which your husband is going to take you. You will be gowned by the great dressmakers. Isn’t she fortunate, Colonel?” She spoke to every one of the luck of Mme. Cernay. These two words, “Madame Cernay,” assumed in her mouth majestic importance. Our marriage flattered her as though it were a personal triumph. The lack of guests, however, appeared to her unreasonable, harmful, and distressing. One had to talk continually to the same people. For lack of anything better, want of better guests, she gave orders that every peasant who passed the gate that day should receive entertainment. When the evening came, and I was leading my wife away, Mme. Mairieux, at the moment of parting, looked at her daughter in admiration before kissing her, like a commander embracing a newly decorated soldier. The chateau represented in her eyes the Promised Land. Her husband expressed his emotion differently: “She is my only child,” he said to me. “Take care of her.” Fearing lest he might break down, he dared not say more. In the midst of our little group, swayed by such different sentiments, Raymonde preserved her face of peace.