The Red Lily | Page 6

read to his colleague a memoir on the part
played by flexions in the idiom of the ancient Tuscans."
Madame Martin asked what a flexion was.
"Oh, Madame, if I explain anything to you, it will mix up everything.
Be content with knowing that in that memoir poor Marmet quoted
Latin texts and quoted them wrong. Schmoll is a Latinist of great
learning, and, after Mommsen, the chief epigraphist of the world.
"He reproached his young colleague--Marmet was not fifty years
old--with reading Etruscan too well and Latin not well enough. From
that time Marmet had no rest. At every meeting he was mocked
unmercifully; and, finally, in spite of his softness, he got angry.
Schmoll is without rancor. It is a virtue of his race. He does not bear
ill-will to those whom he persecutes. One day, as he went up the
stairway of the Institute with Renan and Oppert, he met Marmet, and
extended his hand to him. Marmet refused to take it, and said 'I do not
know you.'--'Do you take me for a Latin inscription?' Schmoll replied.
Marmet died and was buried because of that satire. Now you know the
reason why his widow sees his enemy with horror."
"And I have made them dine together, side by side."
"Madame, it was not immoral, but it was cruel."
"My dear sir, I shall shock you, perhaps; but if I had to choose, I should
like better to do an immoral thing than a cruel one."
A young man, tall, thin, dark, with a long moustache, entered, and

bowed with brusque suppleness.
"Monsieur Vence, I think that you know Monsieur Le Menil."
They had met before at Madame Martin's, and saw each other often at
the Fencing Club. The day before they had met at Madame Meillan's.
"Madame Meillan's--there's a house where one is bored," said Paul
Vence.
"Yet Academicians go there," said M. Robert Le Menil. "I do not
exaggerate their value, but they are the elite."
Madame Martin smiled.
"We know, Monsieur Le Menil, that at Madame Meillan's you are
preoccupied by the women more than by the Academicians. You
escorted Princess Seniavine to the buffet and talked to her about
wolves."
"What wolves?"
"Wolves, and forests blackened by winter. We thought that with so
pretty a woman your conversation was rather savage!"
Paul Vence rose.
"So you permit, Madame, that I should bring my friend Dechartre? He
has a great desire to know you, and I hope he will not displease you.
There is life in his mind. He is full of ideas."
"Oh, I do not ask for so much," Madame Martin said. "People that are
natural and show themselves as they are rarely bore me, and sometimes
they amuse me."
When Paul Vence had gone, Le Menil listened until the noise of
footsteps had vanished; then, coming nearer:
"To-morrow, at three o'clock? Do you still love me?"

He asked her to reply while they were alone. She answered that it was
late, that she expected no more visitors, and that no one except her
husband would come.
He entreated. Then she said:
"I shall be free to-morrow all day. Wait for me at three o'clock."
He thanked her with a look. Then, placing himself on at the other side
of the chimney, he asked who was that Dechartre whom she wished
introduced to her.
"I do not wish him to be introduced to me. He is to be introduced to me.
He is a sculptor."
He deplored the fact that she needed to see new faces, adding:
"A sculptor? They are usually brutal."
"Oh, but this one does so little sculpture! But if it annoys you that I
should meet him, I will not do so."
"I should be sorry if society took any part of the time you might give to
me."
"My friend, you can not complain of that. I did not even go to Madame
Meillan's yesterday."
"You are right to show yourself there as little as possible. It is not a
house for you."
He explained. All the women that went there had had some spicy
adventure which was known and talked about. Besides, Madame
Meillan favored intrigue. He gave examples. Madame Martin, however,
her hands extended on the arms of the chair in charming restfulness, her
head inclined, looked at the dying embers in the grate. Her thoughtful
mood had flown. Nothing of it remained on her face, a little saddened,
nor in her languid body, more desirable than ever in the quiescence of
her mind. She kept for a while a profound immobility, which added to

her personal attraction the charm of things that art had created.
He asked her of what she was thinking. Escaping the magic of the blaze
in the ashes, she said:
"We will go