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a salamander--her "svelte" body seemingly boneless in its gown of clinging scales. Her hair is purple-black and freshly onduled; her skin as white as ivory. She has the habit of throwing back her small, well-posed head, while under their delicately penciled lids her gray eyes take in the room at a glance. She is not of the Quarter, but the Taverne du Pantheon is a refuge for her at times, when she grows tired of Paillard's and Maxim's and her quarreling retinue. "Let them howl on the other bank of the Seine," says this empress of the half-world to herself, "I dine with Raoul where I please." And now one glittering, red arm with its small, heavily-jeweled hand glides toward Raoul's open cigarette case, and in withdrawing a cigarette she presses for a moment his big, strong hand as he holds near her polished nails the flaming match. [Illustration: ALONG THE SEINE] Her companion watches her as she smokes and talks--now and then he leans closer to her, squaring his broad shoulders and bending lower his strong, determined face, as he listens to her,--half-amused, replying to her questions leisurely, in short, crisp sentences. Suddenly she stamps one little foot savagely under the table, and, clenching her jeweled hands, breathes heavily. She is trembling with rage; the man at her side hunches his great shoulders, flicks the ashes from his cigarette, looks at her keenly for a moment, and then smiles. In a moment she is herself again, almost penitent; this little savage, half Roumanian, half Russian, has never known what it was to be ruled! She has seen men grow white when she has stamped her little foot, but this big Raoul, whom she loves--who once held a garrison with a handful of men--he does not tremble! she loves him for his devil-me-care indifference--and he enjoys her temper. But the salamander remembers there are some whom she dominated, until they groveled like slaves at her feet; even the great Russian nobleman turned pale when she dictated to him archly and with the voice of an angel the price of his freedom. "Poor fool! he shot himself the next day," mused the salamander. Yes, and even the adamant old banker in Paris, crabbed, stern, unrelenting to his debtors--shivered in his boots and ended in signing away half his fortune to her, and moved his family into a permanent chateau in the country, where he keeps himself busy with his shooting and his books. * * * * * As it
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