"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, which 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."