Countess Martin murmured:

"Oh, yes, people see only their ideas; they follow only their ideas.
They go along, blind and deaf. One can not stop them."

"But, my dear," said Count Martin, placed in front of her, by the
Princess's side, "without leading ideas one would go haphazard. Have you
read, Montessuy, the speech delivered by Loyer at the unveiling of the
Cadet-Gassicourt statue? The beginning is remarkable. Loyer is not
lacking in political sense."

The carriage, having traversed the fields bordered with willows, went up
a hill and advanced on a vast, wooded plateau. For a long time it
skirted the walls of the park.

"Is it the Guerric?" asked the Princess Seniavine.

Suddenly, between two stone pillars surmounted by lions, appeared the
closed gate. At the end of a long alley stood the gray stones of a
castle.

"Yes," said Montessuy, "it is the Guerric."

And, addressing Therese:

"You knew the Marquis de Re? At sixty-five he had retained his strength
and his youth. He set the fashion and was loved. Young men copied his
frockcoat, his monocle, his gestures, his exquisite insolence, his
amusing fads. Suddenly he abandoned society, closed his house, sold his
stable, ceased to show himself. Do you remember, Therese, his sudden