She had written: "Come; you will see the most beautiful things in the world, and you will embellish them." And "darling" was saying to herself that she would not go, that she must remain in Paris.

But the idea of seeing Miss Bell in Italy was not indifferent to her.

And turning the leaves of the book, she stopped by chance at this line: Love and gentle heart are one.
And she asked herself, with gentle irony, whether Miss Bell had ever been in love, and what manner of man could be the ideal of Miss Bell.
The poetess had at Fiesole an escort, Prince Albertinelli.

He was very handsome, but rather coarse and vulgar; too much so to please an aesthete who blended with the desire for love the mysticism of an Annunciation.
"Good-evening, Therese.

I am positively worn out." The Princess Seniavine had entered, supple in her furs, which almost seemed to form a part of her dark beauty.