Choulette warned Madame Martin severely that she should not call misfortune an unwelcome visitor.

“Misfortune is our greatest master and our best friend.  Misfortune teaches us the meaning of life.  Madame, when you suffer, you know what you must know; you believe what you must believe; you do what you must do; you are what you must be.  And you shall have joy, which pleasure expels.  True joy is timid, and does not find pleasure among a multitude.”

Prince Albertinelli said that Miss Bell and her French friends did not need to be unfortunate in order to be perfect, and that the doctrine of perfection reached by suffering was a barbarous cruelty, held in horror under the beautiful sky of Italy.  When the conversation languished, he prudently sought again at the piano the phrases of the graceful and banal Sicilian air, fearing to slip into an air of Trovatore, which was written in the same manner.

Vivian Bell questioned the monsters she had created, and complained of their absurd replies.

“At this moment,” she said, “I should like to hear speak only figures on tapestries which should say tender things, ancient and precious as themselves.”

And the handsome Prince, carried away by the flood of melody, sang.  His voice displayed itself like a peacock’s plumage, and died in spasms of “ohs” and “ahs.”

The good Madame Marmet, her eyes fixed on the door, said: 

“I think that Monsieur Dechartre is coming.”

He came in, animated, with joy on his usually grave face.

Miss Bell welcomed him with birdlike cries.

“Monsieur Dechartre, we were impatient to see you.  Monsieur Choulette was talking evil of doors—­yes, of doors of houses; and he was saying also that misfortune is a very obliging old gentleman.  You have lost all these beautiful things.  You have made us wait very long, Monsieur Dechartre.  Why?”

He apologized; he had taken only the time to go to his hotel and change his dress.  He had not even gone to bow to his old friend the bronze San Marco, so imposing in his niche on the San Michele wall.  He praised the poetess and saluted the Countess Martin with joy hardly concealed.

“Before quitting Paris I went to your house, where I was told you had gone to wait for spring at Fiesole, with Miss Bell.  I then had the hope of finding you in this country, which I love now more than ever.”

She asked him whether he had gone to Venice, and whether he had seen again at Ravenna the empresses wearing aureolas, and the phantoms that had formerly dazzled him.

No, he had not stopped anywhere.

She said nothing.  Her eyes remained fixed on the corner of the wall, on the St. Paulin bell.

He said to her: 

“You are looking at the Nolette.”

Vivian Bell laid aside her papers and her pencils.