hich was antique in style and jovial in expression.
But she did not always understand what he said. She asked Jacques:

"What did he say?"

"Do you really wish to know?"

Yes, she wished to know.

"Well, he said he should be happy if the fleas in his bed were shaped
like you!"

When she had eaten the ice, he asked her to return to San Michele.
It was so near! They would cross the square and at once discover the
masterpiece in stone. They went. They looked at the St. George and at
the bronze St. Mark. Dechartre saw again on the wall the post-box, and
he recalled with painful exactitude the little gloved hand that had
dropped the letter. He thought it hideous, that copper mouth which had
swallowed Therese's secret. He could not turn his eyes away from it. All
his gayety had fled. She admired the rude statue of the Evangelist.

"It is true that he looks honest and frank, and it seems that, if he
spoke, nothing but words of truth would come out of his mouth."

He replied bitterly:

"It is not a woman's mouth."

She understood his thought, and said, in her soft tone:

"My friend, why do you say this to me? I am frank."

"What do you call frank? You know that a woman is obliged to lie."

She hesitated. Then she said:

"A woman is frank when she does not lie uselessly."

CHAPTER XXI. "I NEVER HAVE LOVED ANY ONE BUT YOU!"

Therese was dressed in sombre gray. The bushes on the border of
the terrace were covered with silver stars and on the hillsides the
laurel-trees threw their odoriferous flame. The cup of Florence was in
bloom.

Vivian Bell walked, arrayed in white, in the fragrant garden.

"You see, darling, Florence is truly the city of flowers, and it is not
inappropriate that she should have a red lily for her emblem. It is a
festival to-day, darling."

"A festival, to-day?"

"Darling, do you not know this is the first day of May? You did not wake
this morning in a charming fairy spectacle? Do you not celebrate the
Festival of Flowers? Do you not feel joyful, you who love flowers? For
you love them, my love, I know it: you are very good to them. You said
to me that they feel joy and pain; that they suffer as we do."

"Ah! I said that they suffer as we do?"

"Yes, you said it. It is their festival to-day. We must celebrate it
with the rites consecrated by old painters."

Therese heard without understanding. She was crumpling under her glove
a letter which she had just received, bearing the