a great
deal of harm. How can you be so unkind?"

"Therese, one is never kind when one is in love."

She remained for a long time immovable and dreamy. Her face flushed, and
a tear rose to her eyes.

"Therese, you are weeping!"

"Forgive me, my heart, it is the first time that I have loved and that I
have been really loved. I am afraid."

CHAPTER XXIV. CHOULETTE'S AMBITION

While the rolling of arriving boxes filled the Bell villa; while
Pauline, loaded with parcels, lightly came down the steps; while good
Madame Marmet, with tranquil vigilance, supervised everything; and
while Miss Bell finished dressing in her room, Therese, dressed in gray,
resting on the terrace, looked once again at the Flower City.

She had decided to return home. Her husband recalled her in every one
of his letters. If, as he asked her to do, she returned to Paris in the
first days of May, they might give two or three dinners, followed by
receptions. His political group was supported by public opinion. The
tide was pushing him along, and Garain thought the Countess Martin's
drawing-room might exercise an excellent influence on the future of
the country. These reasons moved her not; but she felt a desire to be
agreeable to her husband. She had received the day before a letter from
her father, Monsieur Montessuy, who, without sharing the political
views of his son-in-law and without giving any advice to his daughter,
insinuated that society was beginning to gossip of the Countess Martin's
mysterious sojourn at Florence among poets and artists. The Bell villa
took, from a distance, an air of sentimental fantasy. She felt herself
that she was too closely observed at Resole. Madame Marmet annoyed her.
Prince Albertinelli disquieted her. The meetings in the pavilion of the
Via Alfieri had become difficult and dangerous. Professor Arrighi, whom
the Prince often met, had seen her one night as she was walking through
the deserted streets leaning on Dechartre. Professor Arrighi, author
of a treatise on agriculture, was the most amiable of wise men. He had
turned his beautiful, heroic face, and said, only the next day, to the
young woman "Formerly, I could discern from a long distance the coming
of a beautiful woman. Now that I have gone beyond the age to be viewed
favorably by women, heaven has pity on me. Heaven prevents my seeing
them. My eyes are very bad. The most charming face I can no longer
recognize." She had understood, and heeded th