em grammatically."

"Decidedly," reflects Brandolin, "Lawrence must have looked too often at
Madame Sabaroff."

"Sabaroff is dead, isn't he?" he asked, aloud. "You know I have been out
of society for a year: the whole map of Europe gets altered in one's
absence."

"Sabaroff was shot in a duel four years ago," replies Mrs. Curzon,--"a
duel about her."

"What a fortunate woman! To get rid of a husband, and to get rid of him
in such interesting circumstances! _C'est le comble de bonheur!_"

"That depends. With her it resulted in her exile from court."

"Oh, to be sure; when Russians are naughty they are sent to live on
their estates, as riotous children are dismissed to the nursery. Was she
compromised, then?"

"Very much compromised; and both men were killed, for the adversary of
Sabaroff had been wounded mortally, when, with an immense effort, he
fired, and shot the prince through the lungs."

"A pretty little melodrama. Who was the opponent?"

"Count Lustoff, a colonel of the Guard. I wonder you did not hear of it:
it made a stir at the time."

"I may have heard: when one doesn't know the people concerned, no
massacre, even of the Innocents, makes any impression on one. And the
result was that the lady had to leave the imperial court?"

"Yes: they do draw a line _there_."

Brandolin laughs; it tickles his fancy to hear Mrs. Wentworth Curzon
condemning by implication the laxity of the court of St. James.

"They can't send _us_ to our estates," he replies, "the lands are so
small and the railways are so close. Else it would have a very good
effect if all our naughty people could be shut up inside their own
gates, with nobody to speak to but the steward and the rector. Can you
imagine anything that would more effectively contribute to correct
manners and morals? But how very desolate London would look!"

"You think everybody would be exiled inside his own ring-fence!"

"_Her_ own ring-fence,--well, nearly everybody. There would certainly be
no garden-parties at Marlborough House."

Mrs. Wentworth Curzon is not pleased; she is a star of the first
magnitude at Marlborough House.

"Why does she take this absent woman's character away?" thinks
Brandolin, with a sense of irritation. "I will trust the Babe's
instincts sooner than hers."

He does not know Xenia Sabaroff; but he admires the photograph of her
which stands on the boudoir table, and he likes the tone of the letter
written from Aix. With that sp