Then he bent to her ear, and in an ardent voice, which he tried to
soften:

"You must take me with my own soul!"

Therese felt a shiver of fear mingled with joy.




CHAPTER XIV

THE AVOWAL

She next day she said to herself that she would reply to Robert. It was
raining. She listened languidly to the drops falling on the terrace.
Vivian Bell, careful and refined, had placed on the table artistic
stationery, sheets imitating the vellum of missals, others of pale violet
powdered with silver dust; celluloid pens, white and light, which one had
to manage like brushes; an iris ink which, on a page, spread a mist of
azure and gold. Therese did not like such delicacy. It seemed to her
not appropriate for letters which she wished to make simple and modest.
When she saw that the name of "friend," given to Robert on the first
line, placed on the silvery paper, tinted itself like mother-of-pearl,
a half smile came to her lips. The first phrases were hard to write.
She hurried the rest, said a great deal of Vivian Bell and of Prince
Albertinelli, a little of Choulette, and that she had seen Dechartre at
Florence. She praised some pictures of the museums, but without
discrimination, and only to fill the pages. She knew that Robert had no
appreciation of painting; that he admired nothing except a little