of blue powder: 'This is for you, father. Your ultramarine which I took
with my brush fell to the bottom of my cup, whence I gathered it every
day. I return it to you. Learn to trust honest people."

"Oh," said Therese, "there is nothing extraordinary in the fact that
Perugino was avaricious yet honest. Interested people are not always the
least scrupulous. There are many misers who are honest."

"Naturally, darling," said Miss Bell. "Misers do not wish to owe
anything, and prodigal people can bear to have debts. They do not think
of the money they have, and they think less of the money they owe.
I did not say that Pietro Vanucci of Perugia was a man without property.
I said that he had a hard business head and that he bought houses. I am
very glad to hear that he returned the ultramarine to the prior of the
Gesuati."

"Since your Pietro was rich," said Choulette, "it was his duty to return
the ultramarine. The rich are morally bound to be honest; the poor are
not."

At this moment, Choulette, to whom the waiter was presenting a silver
bowl, extended his hands for the perfumed water. It came from a vase
which Miss Bell passed to her guests, in accordance with antique usage,
after meals.

"I wash my hands," he said, "of the evil that Madame Martin does or may
do by her speech, or otherwise."

And he rose, awkwardly, after Miss Bell, who took the arm of Professor
Arrighi.