"I do not see, sir, what you can say against a marriage such as ours,"
said the old man to me.

"The laws of Rome forefend!" I cried, laughing.

The marchioness gave me a look filled with inquietude as well as
disapprobation, which seemed to say, "Is it possible that at my age I
have become but a concubine?"

We sat down upon a bench, in the gloomy clump of trees planted at the
corner of the high terrace which commands La Place Louis XV, on the
side of the Garde-Meuble. Autumn had already begun to strip the trees
of their foliage, and was scattering before our eyes the yellow leaves
of his garland; but the sun nevertheless filled the air with grateful
warmth.

"Well, is your work finished?" asked the old man, in the unctuous
tones peculiar to men of the ancient aristocracy.

And with these words he gave a sardonic smile, as if for commentary.

"Very nearly, sir," I replied. "I have come to the philosophic
situation, which you appear to have reached, but I confess that I--"

"You are searching for ideas?" he added--finishing for me a sentence,
which I confess I did not know how to end.

"Well," he continued, "you may boldly assume, that on arriving at the
winter of his life, a man--a man who thinks, I mean--ends by denying
that love has any existence, in the wild form with which our illusions