Robert saw her six times. Once he met her near the Tuileries, offered
her his arm and walked with her the whole length of the gardens. She was
not on that occasion looking as well as usual, being a little too much
"endimanchee" in terrestrial lavenders and super-celestial blues--not,
in fact, dressed with the remarkable taste which he has seen in her
at other times. Her usual costume is both pretty and quiet, and the
fashionable waistcoat and jacket (which are respectable in all the
"Ladies' Companions" of the day) make the only approach to masculine
wearings to be observed in her.

'She has great nicety and refinement in her personal ways, I think--and
the cigarette is really a feminine weapon if properly understood.

'Ah! but I didn't see her smoke. I was unfortunate. I could only go with
Robert three times to her house, and once she was out. He was really
very good and kind to let me go at all after he found the sort of
society rampant around her. He didn't like it extremely, but being the
prince of husbands, he was lenient to my desires, and yielded the point.
She seems to live in the abomination of desolation, as far as regards
society--crowds of ill-bred men who adore her, 'a genoux bas', betwixt
a puff of smoke and an ejection of saliva--society of the ragged red,
diluted with the low theatrical. She herself so different, so apart, so
alone in her melancholy disdain. I was deeply interested in that poor
woman. I felt a profound compassion for her. I did not mind much
even the Greek, in Greek costume, who 'tutoyed' her, and kissed her I
believe, so Robert said--or the other vulgar man of the theatre, who
went down on his knees and called her "sublime". "Caprice d'amitie,"
said she with her quiet, gentle scorn. A noble woman under the mud, be
certain. _I_ would kneel down to her, too, if she would leave it all,
throw it off, and be herself as God made her. But she would not care for