not
last forever; it was too good."

"And if Monsieur le Cure comes to dinner there is no more kuemmel," the
little maid had confessed, and added with a shy lifting of her truthful
eyes, "monsieur does not wish I should get more of the black cigars at
the grocery?"

I had winced as I recalled the last box, purchased from the only store
in Pont du Sable, where they had lain long enough to absorb the pungent
odour of dried herring and kerosene.

Of course it was not right that our guests should suffer thus from an
empty larder and so, as I have said, I had run up from the sea to
replenish it. It was, I confess, an extravagant way of doing one's
marketing; but then there was Paris in the spring beckoning me, and who
can resist her seductive call at such a time?

But to my story: I finished my glass of vermouth, and, following the
Baron's example, entered the Government's store, where I discovered him
selecting with the air of a connoisseur a dozen thin boxes of rare
perfectos. He chatted pleasantly with the clerk who served him and upon
going to the desk, opened a Russian-leather portfolio and laid before
the cashier six crisp, new one-hundred-franc notes in payment for the
lot. I have said that the Baron was immaculate, and he _was_, even to
his money. It was as spotless and unruffled as his linen, as neat, in
fact, as were the noble perfectos of his choice, long, mild and pure,
with tiny ends, and fat, comforting bodies that guaranteed a quality fit
for an emperor; but then the least a bank can do, I imagine, is to
provide clean money to its president.

As the Baron passed out and my own turn at the desk came to settle for
my modest provision of Havanas, I recalled to my mind the current gossip
of the Baron's extravagance, of the dinners he had lately given that
surprised Paris--and Paris is not easily surprised. What if he had "sold
more than half of his vast estate in Brazil last year"? And suppose he
was no longer able or willing "to personally supervise his racing
stable," that he "had grown tired of the track," etc. Nonsense! The
press knows so little of the real truth. For me the Baron Santos da
Granja a was simply a seasoned man of the world, with the good taste to
have retired from its conspicuous notoriety; and good taste is always
expensive. His bank account did not interest me.

* * * * *

I knew her well by sight, for she passed me often in the Bois de
Boulogne when I r