In the drawing-room she said, while serving the coffee: 

“Monsieur Choulette, why do you condemn us to the savage sadness of equality?  Why, Daphnis’s flute would not be melodious if it were made of seven equal reeds.  You wish to destroy the beautiful harmonies between masters and servants, aristocrats and artisans.  Oh, I fear you are a sad barbarian, Monsieur Choulette.  You are full of pity for those who are in need, and you have no pity for divine beauty, which you exile from this world.  You expel beauty, Monsieur Choulette; you repudiate her, nude and in tears.  Be certain of this:  she will not remain on earth when the poor little men shall all be weak, delicate, and ignorant.  Believe me, to abolish the ingenious grouping which men of diverse conditions form in society, the humble with the magnificent, is to be the enemy of the poor and of the rich, is to be the enemy of the human race.”

“Enemies of the human race!” replied Choulette, while stirring his coffee.  “That is the phrase the harsh Roman applied to the Christians who talked of divine love to him.”

Dechartre, seated near Madame Martin, questioned her on her tastes about art and beauty, sustained, led, animated her admirations, at times prompted her with caressing brusquerie, wished her to see all that he had seen, to love all that he loved.

He wished that she should go in the gardens at the first flush of spring.  He contemplated her in advance on the noble terraces; he saw already the light playing on her neck and in her hair; the shadow of laurel-trees falling on her eyes.  For him the land and the sky of Florence had nothing more to do than to serve as an adornment to this young woman.

He praised the simplicity with which she dressed, the characteristics of her form and of her grace, the charming frankness of the lines which every one of her movements created.  He liked, he said, the animated and living, subtle, and free gowns which one sees so rarely, which one never forgets.

Although she had been much lauded, she had never heard praise which had pleased her more.  She knew she dressed well, with bold and sure taste.  But no man except her father had made to her on the subject the compliments of an expert.  She thought that men were capable of feeling only the effect of a gown, without understanding the ingenious details of it.  Some men who knew gowns disgusted her by their effeminate air.  She was resigned to the appreciation of women only, and these had in their appreciation narrowness of mind, malignity, and envy.  The artistic admiration of Dechartre astonished and pleased her.  She received agreeably the praise he gave her, without thinking that perhaps it was too intimate and almost indiscreet.

“So you look at gowns, Monsieur Dechartre?”

No, he seldom looked at them.  There were so few women well dressed, even now, when women dress as well as, and even better, than ever.  He found no pleasure in seeing packages of dry-goods walk.  But if a woman having rhythm and line passed before him, he blessed her.