“In a country where master and servants form one family, the fate of the one depends on that of the others.  Taxes despoil us.  How good are our farmers!  They are the best men in the world to till the soil.”

Madame Martin confessed that she should not have believed it.  The country of Lombardy alone seemed to her to be well cultivated.  Tuscany appeared a beautiful, wild orchard.

The Prince replied, smilingly, that perhaps she would not speak in that way if she had done him the honor of visiting his farms of Casentino, although these had suffered from long and ruinous lawsuits.  She would have seen there what an Italian landscape really is.

“I take a great deal of care of my domain.  I was coming from it to-night when I had the double pleasure of finding at the station Miss Bell, who had gone there to find her Ghiberti bell, and you, Madame, who were talking with a friend from Paris.”

He had the idea that it would be disagreeable to her to hear him speak of that meeting.  He looked around the table, and saw the expression of anxious surprise which Dechartre could not restrain.  He insisted: 

“Forgive, Madame, in a rustic, a certain pretension to knowing something about the world.  In the man who was talking to you I recognized a Parisian, because he had an English air; and while he affected stiffness, he showed perfect ease and particular vivacity.”

“Oh,” said Therese, negligently, “I have not seen him for a long time.  I was much surprised to meet him at Florence at the moment of his departure.”

She looked at Dechartre, who affected not to listen.

“I know that gentleman,” said Miss Bell.  “It is Monsieur Le Menil.  I dined with him twice at Madame Martin’s, and he talked to me very well.  He said he liked football; that he introduced the game in France, and that now football is quite the fashion.  He also related to me his hunting adventures.  He likes animals.  I have observed that hunters like animals.  I assure you, darling, that Monsieur Le Menil talks admirably about hares.  He knows their habits.  He said to me it was a pleasure to look at them dancing in the moonlight on the plains.  He assured me that they were very intelligent, and that he had seen an old hare, pursued by dogs, force another hare to get out of the trail so as to deceive the hunters.  Darling, did Monsieur Le Menil ever talk to you about hares?”

Therese replied she did not know, and that she thought hunters were tiresome.

Miss Bell exclaimed.  She did not think M. Le Menil was ever tiresome when talking of the hares that danced in the moonlight on the plains and among the vines.  She would like to raise a hare, like Phanion.