de "that creature's" doors. Immediately a
slight retrograde movement took place among Mesdames Guggenheim,
Caraiscaki, and other bales of finery, as always happens in Paris
whenever obstinate resistance from some quarter to the regularizing of
an irregular state of affairs leads to regrets and defections. They had
advanced too far to withdraw, but they determined that the value of
their complaisance, of the sacrifice of their prejudices should be more
fully understood; and Baroness Marie realized the difference simply from
the patronizing tone of the Levantines, who called her "my dear
child--my good girl," with haughty condescension not unmingled with
contempt. Thereafter her hatred of the Jansoulets knew no bounds, a
complicated, savage, seraglio hatred, with strangling and secret
drowning at the end, an operation rather more difficult of performance
in Paris than on the shores of the Lake of El-Baheira, but she was
already preparing the bow-string and stout bag.

That implacable hatred being well known and understood, we can imagine
the surprise and excitement in that exotic corner of society, when it
was reported that not only did the stout Afchin--as those ladies called
her--consent to meet the baroness, but was to call first upon her on her
next Saturday. You may be sure that neither the Fuernbergs nor the
Trotts proposed to miss that occasion. The baroness for her part did all
that she could to give the utmost possible publicity to that solemn act
of reparation, wrote notes and made calls and played her cards so well
that, notwithstanding the fact that the season was very far advanced,
Madame Jansoulet, if she had arrived at the mansion in Faubourg
Saint-Honore about four o'clock, might have seen before the lofty arched
gateway, beside the Princesse de Dions' quiet livery of the color of
dead leaves, and many genuine coats of arms, the showy, pretentious
crests, the multi-colored wheels of a multitude of financiers' equipages
and the tall powdered lackeys of the Caraiscakis.

Above, in the reception-rooms, there was the same strange and gorgeous
medley. There was a constant going and coming over the carpets of the
first two rooms, which were quite deserted, a rustling of silk dresses
to and from the boudoir, where the baroness received, dividing her
attentions and her cajoleries between the two very distinct camps; on
one side dark dresses, modest in appearance, whose richness was
discernible to none but practis