“That is true,” replied Rodolphe. “To think that not one of these people is capable of understanding even the cut of a coat!”

Then they talked about provincial mediocrity, of the lives it crushed, the illusions lost there.

“And I too,” said Rodolphe, “am drifting into depression.”

“You!” she said in astonishment; “I thought you very lighthearted.”

“Ah! yes. I seem so, because in the midst of the world I know how to wear the mask of a scoffer upon my face; and yet, how many a time at the sight of a cemetery by moonlight have I not asked myself whether it were not better to join those sleeping there!”

“Oh! and your friends?” she said. “You do not think of them.”