The Red Lily

favors of the cotillons of three winters. The rosewood chiffonier was surmounted by a silver cup, a prize from some sporting club. On a porcelain plaque, in the centre of the table, stood a

rom the little Bohemian glass cup standing on the table, where she had kept it for three years. He looked at her, passing her light fingers quic

id to

t cross now

ed upon having an

peat what I said at first. I think it strange that I

that she had remained cold and reserved toward hi

rom Caumont, recalling my promise to hunt the fox in his woods, and I replied by return post. I meant to tell

ase. She turned toward him a glance from her

ou are

ednesday. I shall be awa

in toque, ornamented

ng that you ca

in a month. Moreover, Caumont has invited good

her head with a lo

unting in

observed at night a fox hunting a rabbit. He had organized a real hunt. I assure you it is not easy to dislodge a fox. Cau

wish me to

an make ru

l be hunting

ad with her her two daughters and her three nieces with their husbands. All five women are pretty, gay, charming, and irreproachabl

. I should be inconsolable if you shortened o

ou, Th

I can take ca

hadows were deepening between t

hat it is never prudent

to see her eyes in the da

ve me?"

that I do not lo

do you

that in winter you live with your parents and your friends half the time; and that,

confidence that came less from the conceit common to all lovers than from his natural lac

me, I know. Why do you torment me?

r little hea

father made figures for forty years; at first in a little room, then in the apartment where I was born. We were not very wealthy then. I am a parvenu's daughter, or a conqueror's daughter, it's all the same. We are people of material interests. My father wanted to earn money, to possess what he could buy - that is, everything. I wish to earn and keep - what? I do not know - the happiness that I have - o

ered he

my dear, I bore you. What will you

e was sensitive to all that she did, but not at all to what she said; and he attached no importance to

, he thought it his duty to resist her whims, which he judged absurd. Whenever he pl

ish to do nothing except to be agreeab

to you, it was not because I was logical, nor becaus

er, astonished

ut love must be a pleasure, and if I do not find in it the satisfaction of what you call my capriciousness, but which is really my desire, my life, my

d, very s

ou, Therese, that I would sacrifice

t realized that if she insisted he would not go. But it was too late: she did not wish to win. She would

have pr

affected

to reason. He was grateful to her for not having been stubborn. He put his ar

more, if you wish. I will wait for you as often as

of saying that she could not com

ned the things th

on the difficulties they seemed to increase. The calls could not be postponed; there were three fairs; t

e that it was not natural for Therese to offer them. Embarrassed by this tiss

ainst the rich background of the sapphire and ruby-colored folds of the Oriental draperies, she turned he

y errands, your little visits are nothing. Li

ut he made it a point not to show himself with her in

h would never leave her. What had happened? Nothing. And that nothing had effaced everything. She had a sort of obscure certainty that she would never return to that room which had so recently enclosed the most secret and dearest phases of her life. She had loved Robert with the seriousness of a necessary joy. Made to be loved, and very reasonable, she had not lost in the abandonment of herself that instinct of reflection, that necessity for security, which was so strong in her. She had not chosen: one seldom chooses. She had not allowed herself to be taken at random and by surprise. She had done what she had wished to do, as much as one ever does what one wishes to do in such cases. She had nothing to regret. He had been to her what it was his duty to be. She felt, in spite of everything, that all was at an end. She thought, with dry sadness, that three years of her life had been given to an honest man who had loved her and whom she had loved. "For I loved him. I must have loved him in order to give myself to him." But she could not feel again the sentiments of early days, the movements of her mind when she had yielded. She recalled small and insignificant circ

ll these reflections brought her back to that point. It was not a resolution; res

en belfry, she recalled the little bouquet of violets that he had given to her one night on the bridge near Notre Dame. They had loved each other that da

tions to her: a dinner and the theatre. It amused her. She was not at all disturbed; this was not a crisis. She tho

en she saw at the other end, in front of her, a man who was waiting for her. He recognized her and bowed. It was Dechartre. She saw that he was happy to meet her; she thanked him with a smile. He as

a distance by the rhythm of her figure and

" he added, "are lik

walk; it was her pleasure, and

ough voyages had become common and easy, they retained for him their powerful charm. He had seen golden days and crystalline

make one feel the monstrous delights of the Orient. Despoiled to-day of its silver lamels, the grave of Galla Placidia is frightful under its crypt, luminous yet gloomy. When one looks through an opening in the sarcophagus, it seems as if one saw the daughter of Theodosius, seated on her golden chair, erect in her gown studded w

hat dead woman, so obstinate in he

Dechartre, "she beca

ightens me. Shall you go to Venice, Monsieur Dechartre? Or are you tired of gondolas, of canals bordered by p

right. He, too

he became a painter, and made studies.

in its sky and its women. What pretty creatures the Venetian women are! Their forms are so slender and supple under their black shawls. If nothing remained of these women except a bone, one would find in that bone the charm of their exquisite structure. Sundays, at church, they form

ed more regularly, and almost outstripped him. He looked at her sidewise, and liked her firm and supple c

rm in that meeting, almost intimate

entirely hides the ugliness of the buildings on the quay. One felt the presence of the river by the milky atmosphere which in misty days seems to rest on the

k round and strong, and graceful hips. She was there, in the sun and surrounded by vermin, as pure as an amphora, fragrant as a flower. She smiled. What a mout

es to the quay, between two lines of small

Venice," she said, "

common girls - the cigar-girls, the girls among th

society women; and y

m are charming. As for loving t

u thin

d to him, and sudden

ype="