have been wanted at the buffet of a ball. The Prince, they said, had
sent these things. What Prince?

As Jacqueline was asking this question, a gentleman came in whose age it
would have been impossible to guess, so disguised was he by his black
wig, his dyed whiskers, and the soft bloom on his cheeks, all of which
were entirely out of keeping with those parts of his face that he could
not change. In one of his eyes was stuck a monocle. He was bedizened
with several orders, he bowed with military stiffness, and kissed with
much devotion the ladies' hands, calling them by titles, whether they had
them or not. His foreign accent made it as hard to detect his
nationality as it was to know his age. Two or three other gentlemen,
not less decorated and not less foreign, afterward came in. Colette
named them in a whisper to Jacqueline, but their names were too hard for
her to pronounce, much less to remember. One of them, a man of handsome
presence, came accompanied by a sort of female ruin, an old lady leaning
on a cane, whose head, every time she moved, glittered with jewels,
placed in a very lofty erection of curled hair.

"That gentleman's mother is awfully ugly," Jacqueline could not help
saying.

"His mother? What, the Countess? She is neither his mother nor his
wife. He is her gentleman-in-waiting-that's all. Don't you understand?
Well, imagine a man who is a sort of "gentleman-companion"; he keeps her
accounts, he escorts her to the theatre, he gives her his arm. It is a
very satisfactory arrangement."

"The gentleman receives a salary, in such a case?" inquired Jacqueline,
much amused.