women, and had wit.

Madame Marmet feigned not to know him, and went out without returning his
bow.

When he had exhausted his pretty madrigals, M. Schmoll became sombre and
pitiful. He complained piteously. He was not decorated enough, not
provided with sinecures enough, nor well fed enough by the State--he,
Madame Schmoll, and their five daughters. His lamentations had some
grandeur. Something of the soul of Ezekiel and of Jeremiah was in them.

Unfortunately, turning his golden-spectacled eyes toward the table, he
discovered Vivian Bell's book.

"Oh, 'Yseult La Blonde'," he exclaimed, bitterly. "You are reading that
book, Madame? Well, learn that Mademoiselle Vivian Bell has stolen an
inscription from me, and that she has altered it, moreover, by putting it
into verse. You will find it on page 109 of her book: 'A shade may weep
over a shade.' You hear, Madame? 'A shade may weep over a shade.' Well,
those words are translated literally from a funeral inscription which I
was the first to publish and to illustrate. Last year, one day, when I
was dining at your house, being placed by the side of Mademoiselle Bell,
I quoted this phrase to her, and it pleased her a great deal. At her
request, the next day I translated into French the entire inscription and
sent it to her. And now I find it changed in this volume of verses under
this title: 'On the Sacred Way'--the sacred way, that is I."

And he repeated, in his bad humor:

"I, Madame, am the sacred way."

He was annoyed that the poet had not spoken to him about this
inscription. He would have liked to see his name at the top of the poem,
in the verses, in the rhymes. He wished to see his name everywhere, and
always looked for it in the journals with which his pockets were stuffed.
But he had no rancor. He was not really angry with Miss Bell. He admitted
gracefully that she was a distinguished person, and a poet that did great
honor to England.

When he had gone, the Countess Martin asked ingenuously of Paul Vence if
he knew why that good Madame Marmet had looked at M. Schmoll with such
marked though silent anger. He was surprised that she did not know.

"I never know anything," she said.

"But the quarrel between Schmoll and Marmet is famous. It ceased only at
the death of Marmet.

"The day that poor Marmet was buried, snow was falling. We were wet and
frozen to the bones. At the grave, in the wind, in the mud, Schmoll read
under his umbrella a speech full