"This man can talk!" said the Editor, in an undertone.
"Gentlemen," resumed the poet, "two years passed. Little-Flower-of-the-
Wood was on the Italian Riviera. The Italian Riviera was awake again
after the heat of the summer--the little town that had dozed for many
months began to stir. Almost every day now she saw new faces on the
promenade; the sky was gentler, the sea was fairer. And she sat
loathing it all, craving to escape from it to the bleak streets of
Paris.
"Two winters before, she had been told, 'Your lungs will stand no more
of the pranks you have been playing. You must go South, and keep early
hours, or--' The shrug said the rest. And she had sold some of her
diamonds and obeyed. Of course, it was an awful nuisance, but she must
put up with it for a winter in order to get well. As soon as she was
well, she would go back, and take another engagement. She had promised
herself to be dancing again by May.
"But when May had come, she was no better. And travelling was
expensive, and all places were alike to her since she was forbidden to
return to Paris. She, had disposed of more jewellery, and looked forward
to the autumn. And in the autumn she had looked forward to the spring.
So it had gone on.
"At first, while letters came to her sometimes, telling her how she was
missed, the banishment had been alleviated; later, in her loneliness,
it had grown frightful. Monsieur, her soul--that little soul that
pleasure had held dumb--cried out, under misfortune, like a homeless
child for its mother.
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