"Yes, your poets. What has become of that Monsieur Choulette, who visits
you wrapped in a red muffler?"

"My poets? They forget me, they abandon me. One should not rely on
anybody. Men and women--nothing is sure. Life is a continual betrayal.
Only that poor Miss Bell does not forget me. She has written to me from
Florence and sent her book."

"Miss Bell? Isn't she that young person who looks, with her yellow
waving hair, like a little lapdog?"

He reflected, and expressed the opinion that she must be at least thirty.

An old lady, wearing with modest dignity her crown of white hair, and a
little vivacious man with shrewd eyes, came in suddenly--Madame Marmet
and M. Paul Vence. Then, carrying himself very stiffly, with a square
monocle in his eye, appeared M. Daniel Salomon, the arbiter of elegance.
The General hurried out.

They talked of the novel of the week. Madame Marmet had dined often with
the author, a young and very amiable man. Paul Vence thought the book
tiresome.

"Oh," sighed Madame Martin, "all books are tiresome. But men are more
tiresome than books, and they are more exacting."

Madame Marmet said that her husband, who had much literary taste, had
retained, until the end of his days, a horror of naturalism. She was the
widow of a member of the 'Academie des Inscriptions', and plumed herself