ue girls, Kondje-Gul soon got invited
with them to the balls to which the commodore took his daughters. Having
been admitted to two or three aristocratic drawing-rooms, such as that
of Princess B---- and Marchioness d'A----, she obtained the entry to all
the others. With your knowledge of the infatuations of our fashionable
world, you can imagine the extravagant style of admiring gossip with
which such a beautiful rising star is greeted wherever she goes. I
should add that the young sinner understands it all very well, and is
very much flattered by it.

The mystery which surrounds her increases the peculiarity of our
situation. Being always chaperoned by her mother, whose foreign type of
features creates an imposing impression, Kondje-Gul is taken for one of
those young ladies who are models of filial respect. The style of their
house and of their dress, and that refined elegance which stamps them as
ladies of distinction, designate them no less indisputably the
possessors of a large fortune and of high rank. All this, you will
perceive, formed a crowning justification for the success which
Kondje-Gul's remarkable beauty had of itself sufficed to achieve for
her. Then of course the fashionable reporters of the official receptions
fulfilled their duty by heralding the advent of this brilliant star.
They only made the mistake--one of those mistakes so common with
journalists--of describing her as a Georgian.

Confident in the security of our mystery, Kondje-Gul and I find nothing
more delightful than the manoeuvres by which we deceive them all. We
have invented a code of signs, the meaning of which we keep to
ourselves, and which leads to some very amusing by-play between us.

Thus the other evening, at Madame de T----'s, she was sitting by Maud
and Suzannah, surrounded by a number of admirers, when the young Duke de
Marandal, one of the most ardent of my acknowledged rivals, was
lavishing upon her his most seductive attentions. Kondje was listening
to him with a charming smile on her face. Now that evening, I must tell
you, she had resolved upon a bit of fun; and knowing that in France
unmarried girls are not supposed to wear jewellery, she had fastened on
her wrist a heavy gold bracelet as a token of her servitude. So while
the young duke was talking, she looked at me, playing carelessly the
while with what she calls her "slave's ring." You may guess how we
laughed together over it.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]