Rene Lemanoir then exclaimed

"We are not at all gallant this morning," and looking at his
neighbor, the little Baroness of Serennes, who was struggling
with drowsiness, he said to her in a subdued voice: "You are
thinking of your husband, Baroness. Reassure yourself; he will
not return before Saturday, so you have still four days."

She responded to him with a sleepy smile.

"How rude you are." Then, shaking off her torpor, she added:
"Now, let somebody say something that will make us all laugh.
You, Monsieur Chenal who have the reputation of possessing a
larger fortune than the Duke of Richelieu, tell us a love story
in which you have been mixed up, anything you like."

Leon Chenal, an old painter, who had once keen very handsome,
very strong, who was very proud of his physique and very amiable,
took his long white beard in his hand and smiled; then, after a
few moments' reflection, he became suddenly grave.

"Ladies, it will not be an amusing tale; for I am going to relate
to you the most lamentable love affair of my life, and I
sincerely hope that none of my friends has ever passed through a
similar experience.

I.

"At that time I was twenty-five years old, and was making daubs
along the coast of Normandy. I call 'making daubs' that wandering