Vivian Bell laid aside her papers and her pencils.

"You shall soon see a marvel, Monsieur Dechartre. I have found the queen
of small bells. I found it at Rimini, in an old building in ruins, which
is used as a warehouse. I bought it and packed it myself. I am waiting
for it. You shall see. It bears a Christ on a cross, between the Virgin
and Saint John, the date of 1400, and the arms of Malatesta--Monsieur
Dechartre, you are not listening enough. Listen to me attentively. In
1400 Lorenzo Ghiberti, fleeing from war and the plague, took refuge at
Rimini, at Paola Malatesta's house. It was he that modelled the figures
of my bell. And you shall see here, next week, Ghiberti's work."

The servant announced that dinner was served.

Miss Bell apologized for serving to them Italian dishes. Her cook was a
poet of Fiesole.

At table, before the fiascani enveloped with corn straw, they talked of
the fifteenth century, which they loved. Prince Albertinelli praised the
artists of that epoch for their universality, for the fervent love they
gave to their art, and for the genius that devoured them. He talked with
emphasis, in a caressing voice.

Dechartre admired them. But he admired them in another way.

"To praise in a becoming manner," he said, "those men, who worked so
heartily, the praise should be modest and just. They should be placed in
their workshops, in the shops where they worked as artisans. It is there
that one may admire their simplicity and their genius. They were
ignorant and rude. They had read little and seen little. The hills that