es, like essences in the air that make
one live or die. When her maid came to dress her, she had not begun to
write an answer.

Anxious, she thought: "He trusts me. He suspects nothing." This made her
more impatient than anything. It irritated her to think that there were
simple people who doubt neither themselves nor others.

She went into the parlor, where she found Vivian Bell writing. The latter
said:

"Do you wish to know, darling, what I was doing while waiting for you?
Nothing and everything. Verses. Oh, darling, poetry must be our souls
naturally expressed."

Therese kissed Miss Bell, rested her head on her friend's shoulder, and
said:

"May I look?"

"Look if you wish, dear. They are verses made on the model of the popular
songs of your country."

"Is it a symbol, Vivian? Explain it to me."

"Oh, darling, why explain, why? A poetic image must have several
meanings. The one that you find is the real one. But there is a very
clear meaning in them, my love; that is, that one should not lightly
disengage one's self from what one has taken into the heart."

The horses were harnessed. They went, as had been agreed, to visit the
Albertinelli gallery. The Prince was waiting for them, and Dechartre was
to meet them in the palace. On the way, while the carriage rolled along
the wide highway, Vivian Bell talked with her usual transcendentalism. As
they were descending among houses pink and white, gardens and terraces
ornamented with statues and fountains, she showed to her friend the
villa, hidden under bluish pines, where the ladies and the cavaliers of
the Decameron took refuge from the plague that ravaged Florence, and
diverted one another with tales frivolous, facetious, or tragic. Then she
confessed the thought which had come to her the day before.

"You had gone, darling, to Carmine with Monsieur Dechartre, and you had
left at Fiesole Madame Marmet, who is an agreeable person, a moderate and
polished woman. She knows many anecdotes about persons of distinction who
live in Paris. And when she tells them, she does as my cook Pompaloni
does when he serves eggs: he does not put salt in them, but he puts the
salt-cellar next to them. Madame Marmet's tongue is very sweet, but the
salt is near it, in her eyes. Her conversation is like Pompaloni's dish,
my love--each one seasons to his taste. Oh, I like Madame Marmet a great
deal. Yesterday, after you had gone, I found her alone and sad in a
corner of the drawi