In virtue itself she believes, as astronomers for example believe in the
precession of the equinox; but that the rank and file of human beings,
and especially learned human beings, have attained to the very vaguest
understanding of it she scornfully disbelieves. And with a frankness
simply Gallic in its freedom from those thought-conventions with which
so many people like to deceive themselves she deals with human nature
on what she considers are its merits. The result is sometimes very
disconcerting to the pompous and all the rest of the host of self-deceived,
but usually amusing to herself and often profitable to her friends.

Her ancestry is worth considering, since to that she doubtless owes a
good proportion of her beauty and ability. On her father's side she is
Rajput, tracing her lineage so far back that it becomes lost at last in
fabulous legends of the Moon (who is masculine, by the way, in Indian
mythology). All of the great families of Rajputana are her kin, and all
the chivalry and derring-do of that royal land of heroines and heroes is
part of her conscious heritage.

Her mother was Russian. On that side, too, she can claim blood royal,
not devoid of at least a trace of Scandinavian, betrayed by glittering
golden hair and eyes that are sometimes the color of sky seen over
Himalayan peaks, sometimes of the deep lake water in the valleys. But
very often her eyes seem so full of fire and their color is so baffling that
a legend has gained currency to the effect that she can change their
hue at will.

How a Russian princess came to marry a Rajput king is easier to understand
if one recalls the sinister designs of Russian statecraft in the days when
India and "warm sea-water" was the great objective. The oldest, and