Monsieur d'Avancelles, her husband, saw nothing and knew nothing, as
usual. It was said that he lived apart from his wife on account of
physical weakness, for which Madame d'Avancelles would not pardon him.
He was a short, stout, bald man, with short arms, legs, neck, nose and
everything else, while Madame d'Avancelles, on the contrary, was a tall,
dark and determined young woman, who laughed in her husband's face with
sonorous laughter, while he called her openly _Mrs. Housewife_, who
looked at the broad shoulders, strong build and fair moustaches of her
titled admirer, Baron Joseph de Croissard, with a certain amount of
tenderness.

She had not, however, granted him anything as yet. The baron was ruining
himself for her, and there was a constant round of fêting, hunting
parties and new pleasures, to which he invited the neighboring nobility.
All day long the hounds gave tongue in the woods, as they followed the
fox or the wild boar, and every night dazzling fireworks mingled their
burning plumes with the boars, while the illuminated windows of the
drawing-room cast long rays of light onto the wide lawns, where shadows
were moving to and fro.

It was autumn, the russet-colored season of the year, and the leaves
were whirling about on the grass like flights of birds. One noticed the
smell of damp earth in the air, of the naked earth, like one smells the
odor of the bare skin, when a woman's dress falls off her, after a ball.

One evening, in the previous spring, during an entertainment, Madame
d'Avancelles had said to Monsieur de Croissard, who was worrying her by
his importunities: "If I do succumb to you, my friend, it will not be
before the fall of the leaf. I have too many things to do this summer to
have any time for it." He had not forgotten that bold and amusing