This filled him with consternation.
They went, both silent and moody, into the drawing-room, where Paul Vence was waiting. He often came in the evening.
She extended her hand to him.
“I am very glad to see you. I am going out of town. Paris is cold and bleak. This weather tires and saddens me. I am going to Florence, for six weeks, to visit Miss Bell.”
M. Martin-Belleme then lifted his eyes to heaven.
Vence asked whether she had been in Italy often.
“Three times; but I saw nothing. This time I wish to see, to throw myself into things. From Florence I shall take walks into Tuscany, into Umbria. And, finally, I shall go to Venice.”
“You will do well. Venice suggests the peace of the Sabbath-day in the grand week of creative and divine Italy.”
“Your friend Dechartre talked very prettily to me of Venice, of the atmosphere of Venice, which sows pearls.”
“Yes, at Venice the sky is a colorist. Florence inspires the mind. An old author has said: ‘The sky of Florence is light and subtle, and feeds the beautiful ideas of men.’ I have lived delicious days in Tuscany. I wish I could live them again.”