deceived in her estimate of the character of Ernest Mayer, if you
please; but she would indignantly deny that there was anything sinful,
anything to be ashamed of, in her relations with him. And if, by
reason of them, she at one time suffered a good deal of pain, I am
sure she accounts Camille an exceeding great compensation. That
Camille is her child she would scorn to make a secret. She has scorned
to assume the conciliatory title of Madame. As plain Mademoiselle,
with a daughter, you must take her or leave her. And, somehow, all
this has not seemed to make the faintest difference to her
_clientèle_, not even to the primmest of the English. I can't think of
one of them who did not treat her with deference, like her, and
recommend her house.

But _her_ house they need recommend no more, for she has sold it. Last
spring, when I was in Paris, she told me she was about to do so. 'Ouf!
I have lived with my nose to the grindstone long enough. I am going to
"retire."' What money she had saved from season to season, she
explained, she had entrusted to her friend Baron C----for speculation.
'He is a wizard, and so I am a rich woman. I shall have an income of
something like three thousand pounds, mon cher! Oh, we will roll in
it. I have had ten bad years--ten hateful years. You don't know how I
have hated it all, this business, this drudgery, this cut-and-dried,
methodical existence--moi, enfant de Bohème! But, enfin, it was
obligatory. Now we will change all that. Nous reviendrons à nos
premières amours. I shall have ten good years--ten years of barefaced
pleasure. Then--I will range myself--perhaps. There is the darlingest
little house for sale, a sort of châlet, built of red brick, with
pointed windows and things, in the Rue de Lisbonne. I shall buy
it--furnish it--decorate it. Oh, you will see. I shall have my
carriage, I shall have toilets, I shall entertain, I shall give