Very woman (Sixtine)

CHAPTER I

THE DEAD LEAVES

"When Nature produces these masterpieces, she rarely offers them to the man who could best appreciate and be worthy of possessing them." Kant: _Essay on the Beautiful_.

They walked side by side, under the gloomy old firs whose heavy branches leaned towards the yellowing lawn.

Countess Aubry, with her charm of a negotiator of worl...