to the touch of unskilled fingers, Jeanne sought to change the subject.
"Tell me about your monk," she said. But just at that moment Carlino's
voice was heard in the hall.

"Not now," replied Noemi. "To-night."

Carlino came in, a white silk muffler round his neck, grumbling at the
Lac d'Armour, which he pronounced a huge fraud, which only filled the
air with odious, poisonous, little creatures. "To be sure." said he,
"love itself is no better." Noemi would not allow him to talk of love.
Why should he discuss a subject which he did not understand? Carlino
thanked her. He had been on the point of falling in love with her; had
greatly feared such a catastrophe. Her words, coming as they did so soon
after her appearance in a certain offensive hat, with an ungraceful
feather, and after some rather bourgeois expressions of admiration for
that poor, tiresome devil Mendelssohn, had saved him _a jamais._ The
two sparred gaily for some time, and, in spite of his poisoned tonsils,
Carlino was in such high spirits that Noemi congratulated him on the
subject of his novel. "It must be making rapid progress," she said.

"Nonsense," answered the author. "It is not progressing at all." He
was making no headway, but was, in fact, floundering hopelessly in the
shallows of a desperate situation. Two personages had stuck in the
author's throat, and could move neither up nor down; one fat and
good-natured, the other thin and sarcastic, like Mademoiselle d'Arxel.
He felt like a certain unfortunate Tuscan peasant, who had lately
swallowed a fig with a bee upon it, and had died in consequence. The
"bee" understood that he really wanted to talk of his book; she stung
him again and again to such a degree that he actually did talk about it.
His story was founded on a curious case of spiritual infection. The hero