THE YELLOW ROSES. 323 



friendship for each other, and passed almost all their evenings 

 together playing at backgammon. 



I bowed in silence, that I might not interrupt the con- 

 versation, and when it was finished presented to Madame 

 Lorgerel a bouquet of yellow roses which I had brought 

 with me. 



My roses were very fine ones, in addition to which, the rains 

 of that year caused roses to bloom badly; mine, sheltered 

 by a projecting roof, v^ere, perhaps, the only yellow roses in 

 the neighbourhood that had blossomed well. Madame Lorgerel 

 was delighted with her beautiful bouquet. 



M. Descoudraies said nothing, but he appeared absent 

 and a little agitated. I looked at him with astonishment, 

 being quite unable to comprehend the mysterious influence 

 of my yellow roses; but Madame Lorgerel spoke of something 

 else, and I believed I must have been mistaken.' 



As for M. Descoudraies, he smiled, and would have laughed, 

 but it did not amount to a laugh, and said : — 



" Would you believe that this bouquet has just called up, 

 as if by a magic operation, an entire epoch of my youth ? 



" During five minutes I have been twenty years old, during 

 five minutes I have again become in love with a lady, who, if 

 she be still alive, must be sixty. I must tell you this story, 

 it is a circumstance that has exercised a great influence over 

 my life, and the remembrance of which, even now, when my 

 blood has no more warmth left than just to enable me to 

 live and play at backgammon, does not fail to agitate me in 

 an extraordinary manner. 



" I was twenty ; that is rather more than forty years ago. 

 I had but just left college, at which young men stayed rather 

 later than they do at present.* After having deliberated 

 seriously for me, but without consulting me, upon the choice 

 of a profession, my father one morning announced to me that 

 he had procured me a lieutenancy in a regiment then in 

 garrison in a city of Auvergne, and desired me to be ready to 

 join it in three days. 



" I was greatly disconcerted on many accounts; in the first 

 place, I had no liking for a military life, but that was an 



* The reader must bear in mind, that the " colleges " mentioned in this and other 

 places are analogous to our public schools, such as Harrow and Eton. 



