good for nothing. He wouldn't say 'Bo' to
a goose, and she wouldn't be worth leaving a card upon. Believe me, my
dear Guy, such _esprit_ as there is left in us is only brought out by
eating."

"I think you invert all your reasonings," says Brandolin. "Say rather,
that too much eating has destroyed all _esprit_. Don't we eat all day
long everywhere, or at least are expected to do so? You lament your
ruined digestion. It is impossible to digest when time is only counted
by what our beloved Yankees call square meals (why square I fail to
fathom), and for women it is worse than for us, because they eat such
quantities of sweet things we don't touch, and then the way they go in
for caviare bread-and-butter, and anchovy sandwiches, and all kinds of
rich cakes, and _deux doigts de Madere_ or glasses of kuemmel at the
tea-hour,--it is frightful! I wonder they have any complexions at all
left, even with the assistance of all the '_secrets de Venus_.'"

"You won't alter 'em, my dear fellow," replies Usk, "if you put yourself
out about it ever so much. If you were to marry a savage out of Formosa,
or an Esquimaux, she'd take kindly to the caviare and the kuemmel before
a week was out, if you brought her to Europe. Why, look at dogs,--you
may keep 'em on biscuit and tripe if they live in the kennels, but if
they once come to the dining-room they'll turn their noses up at a
beef-steak if it isn't truffled!"

"Dogs, at least, stop short of the kuemmel," says Brandolin; "but if you
were to put together the sherry, the dry champagne, the liqueurs at tea,
the brandy in the _chasse_ at dinner, which a fashionable woman takes in
the course of the day (not counting any pick-me-up that she may require
in her own room), the amount would be something enormous,--incredible!
You would not believe the number of women who have cured me of an
unhappy passion for them by letting me see what a lot they could drink."

"You will adore the Sabaroff, then. She never touches anything that I
see, except tea."

"Admirable person! I am ready to adore her. Tell me more about her. By
the way, who is she?"

"Oh, you must go to Dolly for biographies of her foreigners. I can't
keep even their names in my head."

"Foreigners! What an expression!" cries Dorothy Usk, in disdain. "Since
steam effaced frontiers, nobody but insular people like ourselves ever
use such a term. Nationalities are obliterated."

She is very fond of Xenia Sabaroff: she has a great