wizened hand toward Miss Adams.

"Charming! Delightful! She has something English in her _insouciant_
pose, and is wholly American in her cerebral quality. And what
colouring, what gorgeous brown hair! What a race, madame, is yours!"

Mrs. Sheldam began to explain that the Adams stock was famous, but the
marquis did not heed her. He peered at her niece through a gold-rimmed
monocle. The princess had left the group near the table and with two
young men slowly moved down the salon. Miss Adams was immediately
surrounded by some antiquated gentlemen wearing orders, who paid her
compliments in the manner of the eighteenth century. She answered them
with composure, for she was sure of her French, sure of herself--the
princess had not annihilated her. Her aunt, accompanied by the marquis,
crossed to her, and the old nobleman amused her with his saturnine
remarks.

"Time was," he said, "when one met here the cream of Parisian wit and
fashion: the great Flaubert, a noisy fellow at times, I vow; Dumas
_fils_; Cabanel, Gérôme, Duran; ever-winning Carolus--ah, what men! Now
we get Polish pianists, crazy Belgians, anarchistic poets, and
Neo-impressionists. I have warned the princess again and again."

"_Bécasse!_" interrupted the lady herself. "Monsieur Rajewski has
consented to play a Chopin nocturne. And here are my two painters, Miss
Adams--Messieurs Bla and Maugre. They hate each other like the Jesuits
and Jansenists of the good old days of Pascal."

"She likes to display her learning," grumbled the marquis to Mrs.
Sheldam. "That younger man, Bla, swears by divided tones; his neighbour,