fragrant as a
flower. She smiled. What a mouth! The richest jewel in the most beautiful
light. I realized in time that this smile was addressed to a butcher
standing behind me with his basket on his head."

At the corner of the short street which goes to the quay, between two
lines of small gardens, Madame Martin walked more slowly.

"It is true that at Venice," she said, "all women are pretty."

"They are almost all pretty, Madame. I speak of the common girls--the
cigar-girls, the girls among the glass-workers. The others are
commonplace enough."

"By others you mean society women; and you don't like these?"

"Society women? Oh, some of them are charming. As for loving them, that's
a different affair."

"Do you think so?"

She extended her hand to him, and suddenly turned the corner.

CHAPTER V

A DINNER 'EN FAMILLE'

She dined that night alone with her husband. The narrow table had not the
basket with golden eagles and winged Victorys. The candelabra did not
light Oudry's paintings. While he talked of the events of the day, she
fell into a sad reverie. It seemed to her that she floated in a mist. It
was a peaceful and almost sweet suffering. She saw vaguely through the
clouds the little room of the Rue Spontini transported by angels to one
of the summits of the Himalaya Mountains, and Robert Le Menil--in the
quaking of a sort of world's end--had disappeared while putting on his
gloves. She felt her pulse to see whether she were feverish. A rattle of
silverware on the table awoke her. She heard her husband saying:

"My dear friend Gavaut delivered to-day, in the Chamber, an excellent
speech on the question of the reserve funds. It's extraordinary how his
ideas have become healthy and just. Oh, he has improved a great deal."

She could not refrain from smiling.

"But Gavaut, my friend, is a poor devil who never thought of anything
except escaping from the crowd of those who are dying of hunger. Gavaut
never had any ideas except at his elbows. Does anybody take him seriously
in the political world? You may be sure that he never gave an illusion to
any woman, not even his wife. And yet to produce that sort of illusion a
man does not need much." She added, brusquely:

"You know Miss Bell has invited me to spend a month with her at Fiesole.
I have accepted; I am going."

Less astonished than discontented, he asked her with whom she was going.

At once she answered:

"With Madame Marmet."

There