ys of July society had lingered on in the capital; luxuriously
appointed carriages still swept along the Champs Elysees when the
audiences poured out of theatres and concert rooms, and fashionably
attired people still thronged the broad pavements and gathered before
the brilliantly lighted cafes on the Rond-Point; even at that late hour
the Champs Elysees were as animated as in the busiest hours of the day.

At the Royal Palace Hotel the greatest animation prevailed. The entire
staff was hurrying about the vast entrance halls and the palatial rooms
on the ground floor; for it was the hour when the guests of the Royal
Palace Hotel were returning from their evening's amusements, and the
spacious vestibules of the immense hotel were crowded with men in
evening dress, young fellows in dinner jackets, and women in low-cut
gowns.

A young and fashionable woman got out of a perfectly appointed victoria,
and M. Louis, the manager of the staff, came forward and bowed low, as
he only did to clients of the very highest distinction. The lady
responded with a gracious smile, and the manager called a servant.

"The lift for Mme. la Princesse Sonia Danidoff," and the next moment the
beautiful vision, who had created quite a sensation merely in passing
through the hall, had disappeared within the lift and was borne up to
her apartments.

Princess Sonia was one of the most important clients that the Royal
Palace Hotel possessed. She belonged to one of the greatest families in
the world, being, by her marriage with Prince Danidoff, cousin to the
Emperor of Russia and, so, connected with many royal personages. Still
barely thirty years of age, she was not pretty but remarkably lovely,
with wonderful blue eyes which formed a strange and most bewitching
contrast to the heavy masses of black hair that framed her face. A woman
of immense wealth, and typically a woman of the world, the Princess
spent six months of the year in Paris, where she was a well-known and
much-liked figure in the most exclusive circles; she was clever and
cultivated, a first-rate musician, and her reputation was spotless,
although it was very seldom that she was accompanied by her husband,
whose duties as Grand Chamberlain to the Tsar kept him almost
continuously in Russia. When in Paris she occupied a suite of four rooms
on the third floor of the Royal Palace Hotel, a suite identical in plan
and in luxury with that reserved for sovereigns who came there
incognito.