On the eve of his departure, about five o'clock in the afternoon, he was standing at his window, looking beyond the trees at the great black clouds sailing over the valley, when he heard the sound of a voice that had power to move him deeply—"Monsieur de Camors!" He saw the Marquise standing under his window.
"Will you walk with me?" she added.
He bowed and descended immediately. At the moment he reached her:
"It is suffocating," she said. "I wish to walk round the park and will take you with me."
He muttered a few polite phrases, and they began walking, side by side, through the alleys of the park.
She moved at a rapid pace, with her majestic motion, her body swaying, her head erect. One would have looked for a page behind her, but she had none, and her long blue robe—she rarely wore short skirts—trailed on the sand and over the dry leaves with the soft rustle of silk.
"I have disturbed you, probably?" she said, after a moment's pause.
"What were you dreaming of up there?"
"Nothing—only watching the coming storm."
"Are you becoming poetical, cousin?"
"There is no necessity for becoming, for I already am infinitely so!"