was much
too busy to do that. Such of her old friends as remained in Paris came
frequently to see her, and new friends gathered round her. She was
beautiful, she was intelligent, responsive, entertaining. In her
salon, on a Friday evening, you would meet half the lions that were at
large in the town--authors, painters, actors, actresses, deputies,
even an occasional Cabinet minister. Red ribbons and red rosettes
shone from every corner of the room. She had become one of the
oligarchs of _la haute Boheme_, she had become one of the celebrities
of Paris. It would be tiresome to count the novels, poems, songs, that
were dedicated to her, the portraits of her, painted or sculptured,
that appeared at the Mirlitons or the Palais de l'Industrie.
Numberless were the _partis_ who asked her to marry them (I know one,
at least, who has returned to the charge again and again), but she
only laughed, and vowed she would never marry. I don't say that she
has never had her fancies, her experiences; but she has consistently
scoffed at marriage. At any rate, she has never affected the least
repentance for what some people would call her 'fault.' Her ideas of
right and wrong have undergone very little modification. She was
deceived in her estimate of the character of Ernest Mayer, if you
please; but she would indignantly deny that there was anything sinful,
anything to be ashamed of, in her relations with him. And if, by
reason of them, she at one time suffered a good deal of pain, I am
sure she accounts Camille an exceeding great compensation. That
Camille is her child she would scorn to make a secret. She has scorned
to assume the conciliatory title of Madame. As plain Mademoiselle,
with a daughter, you must take her or leave her. And, somehow, all
this has not seemed to make the faintest difference to her
_clientele_, not even to the primmest of the English. I can't think of
one of them who did not treat her with deference, like her, and
recommend her house.

But _her_ house they need recommend no more, for she has sold it. Last
spring, when I was in Paris, she told me she was about to do so. 'Ouf!
I have lived with my nose to the grindstone long enough. I am going to
"retire."' What money she had saved from season to season, she
explained, she had entrusted to her friend Baron C----for speculation.
'He is a wizard, and so I am a rich woman. I shall have an income of
something like three thousand pounds, mon cher! Oh, we will roll in