ked nose
before Madame Marmet, who looked at him indignantly.

It was M. Schmoll, member of the Academie des Inscriptions. He smiled
and turned a madrigal for the Countess Martin with that hereditary
harsh, coarse voice with which the Jews, his fathers, pressed their
creditors, the peasants of Alsace, of Poland, and of the Crimea. He
dragged his phrases heavily. This great philologist knew all languages
except French. And Madame Martin enjoyed his affable phrases, heavy and
rusty like the iron-work of brica-brac shops, among which fell dried
leaves of anthology. M. Schmoll liked poets and women, and had wit.

Madame Marmet feigned not to know him, and went out without returning
his bow.

When he had exhausted his pretty madrigals, M. Schmoll became sombre
and pitiful. He complained piteously. He was not decorated enough, not
provided with sinecures enough, nor well fed enough by the State--he,
Madame Schmoll, and their five daughters. His lamentations had some
grandeur. Something of the soul of Ezekiel and of Jeremiah was in them.

Unfortunately, turning his golden-spectacled eyes toward the table, he
discovered Vivian Bell's book.

"Oh, 'Yseult La Blonde'," he exclaimed, bitterly. "You are reading that
book, Madame? Well, learn that Mademoiselle Vivian Bell has stolen an
inscription from me, and that she has altered it, moreover, by putting
it into verse. You will find it on page 109 of her book: 'A shade may
weep over a shade.' You hear, Madame? 'A shade may weep over a shade.'
Well, those words are translated literally from a funeral inscription
which I was the first to publish and to illustrate. Last year, one
day, when I was dining at your house, being placed by the side of
Mademoiselle Bell, I quoted this phrase to her, and it pleased her a
great deal. At her request, the next day I translated into French the
entire inscription and sent it to her. And now I find it changed in this
volume of verses under this title: 'On the Sacred Way'--the sacred way,
that is I."

And he repeated, in his bad humor:

"I, Madame, am the sacred way."

He was annoyed that the poet had not spoken to him about this
inscription. He would have liked to see his name at the top of the poem,
in the verses, in the rhymes. He wished to see his name everywhere,
and always looked for it in the journals with which his pockets were
stuffed. But he had no rancor. He was not really angry with Miss Bell.
He admitted gracefully that she was