es Religions she found the soil
disturbed by workmen. There were paving-stones crossed by a bridge made
of a narrow flexible plank. She had stepped on it, when she saw at the
other end, in front of her, a man who was waiting for her. He recognized
her and bowed. It was Dechartre. She saw that he was happy to meet her;
she thanked him with a smile. He asked her permission to walk a few steps
with her, and they entered into the large and airy space. In this place
the tall houses, set somewhat back, efface themselves, and reveal a
glimpse of the sky.

He told her that he had recognized her from a distance by the rhythm of
her figure and her movements, which were hers exclusively.

"Graceful movements," he added, "are like music for the eyes."

She replied that she liked to walk; it was her pleasure, and the cause of
her good health.

He, too, liked to walk in populous towns and beautiful fields. The
mystery of highways tempted him. He liked to travel. Although voyages had
become common and easy, they retained for him their powerful charm. He
had seen golden days and crystalline nights, Greece, Egypt, and the
Bosporus; but it was to Italy that he returned always, as to the mother
country of his mind.

"I shall go there next week," he said. "I long to see again Ravenna
asleep among the black pines of its sterile shore. Have you seen Ravenna,
Madame? It is an enchanted tomb where sparkling phantoms appear. The
magic of death lies there. The mosaic works of Saint Vitale, with their
barbarous angels and their aureolated empresses, make one feel the
monstrous delights of the Orient. Despoiled to-day of its silver lamels,
the grave of Galla Placidia is frightful under its crypt, luminous yet
gloomy. When one looks through an opening in the sarcophagus, it seems as
if one saw the daughter of Theodosius, seated on her golden chair, erect
in her gown studded with stones and embroidered with scenes from the Old
Testament; her beautiful, cruel face preserved hard and black with
aromatic plants, and her ebony hands immovable on her knees. For thirteen
centuries she retained this funereal majesty, until one day a child
passed a candle through the opening of the grave and burned the body."

Madame Martin-Belleme asked what that dead woman, so obstinate in her
conceit, had done during her life.

"Twice a slave," said Dechartre, "she became twice an empress."

"She must have been beautiful," said Madame Martin. "You have made me se