ts yellow roses, the
bells at noon dispersed the rustic crowd of grain-merchants assembled
to sell their wares. At the foot of the Lanzi, before the statues, the
venders of ices had placed, on tables covered with red cotton, small
castles bearing the inscription: 'Bibite ghiacciate'. And joy descended
from heaven to earth. Therese and Jacques, returning from an early
promenade in the Boboli Gardens, were passing before the illustrious
loggia. Therese looked at the Sabine by John of Bologna with that
interested curiosity of a woman examining another woman. But Dechartre
looked at Therese only. He said to her:

"It is marvellous how the vivid light of day flatters your beauty, loves
you, and caresses the mother-of-pearl on your cheeks."

"Yes," she said. "Candle-light hardens my features. I have observed
this. I am not an evening woman, unfortunately. It is at night that
women have a chance to show themselves and to please. At night, Princess
Seniavine has a fine blond complexion; in the sun she is as yellow as a
lemon. It must be owned that she does not care. She is not a coquette."

"And you are?"

"Oh, yes. Formerly I was a coquette for myself, now I am a coquette for
you."

She looked at the Sabine woman, who with her waving arms, long and
robust, tried to avoid the Roman's embraces.

"To be beautiful, must a woman have that thin form and that length of
limb? I am not shaped in that way."

He took pains to reassure her. But she was not disturbed about it. She
was looking now at the little castle of the ice-vender. A sudden desire
had come to her to eat an ice standing there, as the working-girls of
the city stood.

"Wait a moment," said Dechartre.

He ran toward the street that follows the left side of the Lanzi, and
disappeared.

After a moment he came back, and gave her a little gold spoon, the
handle of which was finished in a lily of Florence, with its chalice
enamelled in red.

"You must eat your ice with this. The man does not give a spoon with
his ices. You would have had to put out your tongue. It would have been
pretty, but you are not accustomed to it."

She recognized the spoon, a jewel which she had remarked the day before
in the showcase of an antiquarian.

They were happy; they disseminated their joy, which was full and simple,
in light words which had no sense. And they laughed when the Florentine
repeated to them passages of the old Italian writers. She enjoyed the
play of his face, w