has already asked for you two or three times, sir. Will you please step up to his room, sir?”

He went upstairs. Forestier appeared to be dozing in his armchair. His wife was reading, stretched out on the sofa.

The invalid raised his head, and Duroy said, “Well, how do you feel? You seem quite fresh this morning.”

“Yes, I am better, I have recovered some of my strength. Get through your lunch with Madeleine as soon as you can, for we are going out for a drive.”

As soon as she was alone with Duroy, the young wife said to him, “There, today he thinks he is all right again. He has been making plans all the morning. We are going to the Golfe Juan now to buy some pottery for our rooms in Paris. He is determined to go out, but I am horribly afraid of some mishap. He cannot bear the shaking of the drive.”

When the landau arrived, Forestier came downstairs a step at a time, supported by his servant. But as soon as he caught sight of the carriage, he ordered the hood to be taken off. His wife opposed this, saying, “You will catch cold. It is madness.”

He persisted, repeating, “Oh, I am much better. I feel it.”

They passed at first along some of those shady roads, bordered by gardens, which cause Cannes to resemble a kind of English Park, and then reached the highway to Antibes, running along the seashore. Forestier acted as guide. He had already pointed out the villa of the Court de Paris, and now indicated others. He was lively, with the forced and feeble gayety of a doomed man. He lifted his finger, no longer having strength to stretch out his arm, and said, “There is the Ile Sainte Marguerite, and the château from which Bazaine escaped. How they did humbug us over that matter!”