Having read this letter, she tore it up gently, threw it in the fire, and calmly watched it burn.

Doubtless, he was right.  He had said what he had to say; he had complained, as it was his duty to complain.  What could she answer?  Should she continue her quarrel?  The subject of it had become so indifferent to her that it needed reflection to recall it.  Oh, no; she had no desire to be tormented.  She felt, on the contrary, very gentle toward him!  Seeing that he loved her with confidence, in stubborn tranquillity, she became sad and frightened.  He had not changed.  He was the same man he had been before.  She was not the same woman.  They were separated now by imperceptible yet strong influences, like essences in the air that make one live or die.  When her maid came to dress her, she had not begun to write an answer.

Anxious, she thought:  “He trusts me.  He suspects nothing.”  This made her more impatient than anything.  It irritated her to think that there were simple people who doubt neither themselves nor others.

She went into the parlor, where she found Vivian Bell writing.  The latter said: 

“Do you wish to know, darling, what I was doing while waiting for you?  Nothing and everything.  Verses.  Oh, darling, poetry must be our souls naturally expressed.”

Therese kissed Miss Bell, rested her head on her friend’s shoulder, and said: 

“May I look?”

“Look if you wish, dear.  They are verses made on the model of the popular songs of your country.”

“Is it a symbol, Vivian?  Explain it to me.”

“Oh, darling, why explain, why?  A poetic image must have several meanings.  The one that you find is the real one.  But there is a very clear meaning in them, my love; that is, that one should not lightly disengage one’s self from what one has taken into the heart.”

The horses were harnessed.  They went, as had been agreed, to visit the Albertinelli gallery.  The Prince was waiting for them, and Dechartre was to meet them in the palace.  On the way, while the carriage rolled along the wide highway, Vivian Bell talked with her usual transcendentalism.  As they were descending among houses pink and white, gardens and terraces ornamented with statues and fountains, she showed to her friend the villa, hidden under bluish pines, where the ladies and the cavaliers of the Decameron took refuge from the plague that ravaged Florence, and diverted one another with tales frivolous, facetious, or tragic.  Then she confessed the thought which had come to her the day before.

“You had gone, darling, to Carmine with Monsieur Dechartre, and you had left at Fiesole Madame Marmet, who is an agreeable person, a moderate and polished woman.  She knows many anecdotes about persons of distinction who live in Paris.  And when she tells them, she does as my cook Pompaloni does when he serves eggs:  he does not put salt in them, but he puts the salt-cellar next to them.  Madame