by an easy turn, which irritated her friend.  She recalled in her soft voice the public meetings at the Institute, the lectures at the Sorbonne, the evening receptions where shone the worldly and the spiritualist philosophers.  As for the women, they were all charming and irreproachable.  She dined with all of them.  And Therese thought:  “She is too prudent.  She bores me.”  And she thought of leaving her at Fiesole and visiting the churches alone.  Employing a word that Le Menil had taught her, she said to herself: 

“I will ‘plant’ Madame Marmet.”

A lithe old man came into the parlor.  His waxed moustache and his white imperial made him look like an old soldier; but his glance betrayed, under his glasses, the fine softness of eyes worn by science and voluptuousness.  He was a Florentine, a friend of Miss Bell and of the Prince, Professor Arrighi, formerly adored by women, and now celebrated in Tuscany for his studies of agriculture.  He pleased the Countess Martin at once.  She questioned him on his methods, and on the results he obtained from them.  He said that he worked with prudent energy.  “The earth,” he said, “is like women.  The earth does not wish one to treat it with either timidity or brutality.”  The Ave Maria rang in all the campaniles, seeming to make of the sky an immense instrument of religious music.  “Darling,” said Miss Bell, “do you observe that the air of Florence is made sonorous and silvery at night by the sound of the bells?”

“It is singular,” said Choulette, “we have the air of people who are waiting for something.”

Vivian Bell replied that they were waiting for M. Dechartre.  He was a little late; she feared he had missed the train.

Choulette approached Madame Marmet, and said, gravely “Madame Marmet, is it possible for you to look at a door—­a simple, painted, wooden door like yours, I suppose, or like mine, or like this one, or like any other—­without being terror-stricken at the thought of the visitor who might, at any moment, come in?  The door of one’s room, Madame Marmet, opens on the infinite.  Have you ever thought of that?  Does one ever know the true name of the man or woman, who, under a human guise, with a known face, in ordinary clothes, comes into one’s house?”

He added that when he was closeted in his room he could not look at the door without feeling his hair stand on end.  But Madame Marmet saw the doors of her rooms open without fear.  She knew the name of every one who came to see her—­charming persons.

Choulette looked at her sadly, and said, shaking his head:  “Madame Marmet, those whom you call by their terrestrial names have other names which you do not know, and which are their real names.”

Madame Martin asked Choulette if he thought that misfortune needed to cross the threshold in order to enter one’s life.

“Misfortune is ingenious and subtle.  It comes by the window, it goes through walls.  It does not always show itself, but it is always there.  The poor doors are innocent of the coming of that unwelcome visitor.”