"You see, I feel bored," she at length said abruptly.
Then she relapsed into silence, her lips pressed firmly together. The line of vehicles still wended its way round the lake, with an uniform trot, and a noise greatly resembling that of some distant cataract. Now, on the left, between the water and the roadway, rose little clumps of evergreens with thin straight stems, forming curious clusters of tiny columns. On the right, the copses and low bushes had come to an end; the Bois had expanded into large lawns, immense carpets of turf, with groups of tall trees planted here and there; the greensward continued, with gentle undulations, as far as the Porte de la Muette, the low iron gates of which, looking like a piece of black lace drawn across the ground, could be seen far away in the distance; and, on the slopes, at the parts where the earth sank in, the grass had quite a bluey look. Renée gazed with fixed eyes, as though this enlargement of the horizon, these soft meads, all reeking with the night dew, had caused her to feel more keenly than ever the emptiness of her existence.
At the end of a pause she repeated, with the accents of subdued anger:
"Oh! I feel bored, I feel bored to death."
"You're not over lively, you know," said Maxime, quietly. "It's your nerves, I'm sure."
The young woman threw herself back again on her cushions.
"Yes, it's my nerves," retorted she, sharply.
Then she became quite maternal.
"I am growing old, my dear child; I shall soon be thirty. It's terrible. I take pleasure in nothing. At twenty, you cannot understand this."
"Did you ask me to come with you to listen to your confession?" interrupted the young man. "It will be terribly long."