Rostain's epic. After coffee, I followed the smokers into the garden. The
evening was magnificent. The marquis led me away along the main avenue,
the fine sand of which sparkled in the moonlight between the dense shadows
of the tall chestnuts. While talking with apparent carelessness, he
submitted me to a sort of examination upon a variety of subjects, as if to
make sure that I was worthy of the interest he had so gratuitously
manifested toward me up to this time. We were far from agreeing on all
points; but, gifted both with sincerity and good-nature, we found almost
as much pleasure in arguing as we did in agreeing. That epicurean is a
thinker; his thought, always generously inclined, has assumed, in the
solitude where it has developed itself, a peculiar and paradoxical turn. I
wish I could give you an idea of it.

As we were returning to the chateau, we heard a great noise of voices and
laughter, and we saw at the foot of the stoop some ten or twelve young men
who were jumping and bounding, as if trying to reach, without the help of
the steps, the platform that crowns the double staircase. We were enabled
to understand the explanation of these passionate gymnastics as soon as
the light of the moon enabled us to distinguish a white dress on the
platform. It was evidently a tournament of which the white dress was to
crown the victor. The young lady (had she not been young, they would not
have jumped so high) was leaning over the balustrade, exposing boldly to
the dew of an autumn night, and to the kisses of Diana, her
flower-wreathed head and her bare shoulders; she was slightly stooping
down, and held out to the competitors an object somewhat difficult to
discern at a distance; it was a slender cigarette, the delicate handiwork
of her white fingers and her rosy nails. Although there was nothing in the
sight that was not charming, Monsieur de Malouet probably found in it
something he did not like, for his tone of cheerful good-humor became
suddenly shaded with a perceptible tint of annoyance, when he murmured: