sentences, he
told her of the charm that she exhaled.

"He, too!" said she to herself.

She amused herself by teasing him. She asked whether he had not found in
Florence, in the low quarters, one of the kind of women whom he liked to
visit. His preferences were known. He could deny it as much as he wished:
no one was ignorant of the door where he had found the cordon of his
Third Order. His friends had met him on the boulevard. His taste for
unfortunate women was evident in his most beautiful poems.

"Oh, Monsieur Choulette, so far as I am able to judge, you like very bad
women."

He replied with solemnity:

"Madame, you may collect the grain of calumiy sown by Monsieur Paul Vence
and throw handfuls of it at me. I will not try to avoid it. It is not
necessary you should know that I am chaste and that my mind is pure. But
do not judge lightly those whom you call unfortunate, and who should be
sacred to you, since they are unfortunate. The disdained and lost girl is
the docile clay under the finger of the Divine Potter: she is the victim
and the altar of the holocaust. The unfortunates are nearer God than the
honest women: they have lost conceit. They do not glorify themselves with
the untried virtue the matron prides herself on. They possess humility,
which is the cornerstone of virtues agreeable to heaven. A short
repentance will be sufficient for them to be the first in heaven; for
their sins, without malice and without joy, contain their own
forgiveness. Their faults, which are pains, participate in the merits
attached to pain; slaves to brutal passion, they are deprived of all
voluptuousness, and in this they are like the men who practise continence
for the kingdom of God. They are like us, culprits; but shame falls on
their crime like a balm, suffering purifies it like fire. That is the
reason why God will listen to the first voice which they shall send to
him. A throne is prepared for them at the right hand of the Father. In
the kingdom of God, the queen and the empress will be happy to sit at the
feet of the unfortunate; for you must not think that the celestial house
is built on a human plan. Far from it, Madame."

Nevertheless, he conceded that more than one road led to salvation. One
could follow the road of love.

"Man's love is earthly," he said, "but it rises by painful degrees, and
finally leads to God."

The Prince had risen. Kissing Miss Bell's hand, he said:

"Saturday."

"Yes, the day afte