exactly like you, Princess. I should like to have my portrait painted by
him. His first name is Michel, is it not?"

She examined the signature, peering through her eyeglass, close to the
canvas.

"Yes, I knew it was. Michel Zichy!"

This name of "Michel!" suddenly pronounced, sped like an arrow through
Marsa's heart. She closed her eyes as if to shut out some hateful
vision, and abruptly quitted the Baroness, who proceeded to analyze
Zichy's portrait as she did the pictures in the salon on varnishing day.
Marsa went toward other friends, answering their flatteries with smiles,
and forcing herself to talk and forget.

Andras, in the midst of the crowd where Vogotzine's loud laugh
alternated with the little cries of the Baroness, felt a complex
sentiment: he wished his friends to enjoy themselves and yet he longed
to be alone with Marsa, and to take her away. They were to go first to
his hotel in Paris; and then to some obscure corner, probably to the
villa of Sainte-Adresse, until September, when they were going to
Venice, and from there to Rome for the winter.

It seemed to the Prince that all these people were taking away from
him a part of his life. Marsa belonged to them, as she went from one
to another, replying to the compliments which desperately resembled one
another, from those of Angelo Valla, which were spoken in Italian, to
those of little Yamada, the Parisianized Japanese. Andras now longed
for the solitude of the preceding days; and Baroness Dinati, shaking her
finger at him, said: "My dear Prince, you are longing to see us go,
I know you are. Oh! don't say you are not! I am sure of it, and I can
understand it. We had no lunch at my marriage. The Baron simply carried
me off at the door of the church. Carried me off! How romantic that
sounds! It suggests an elopement with a coach and four! Have no fear,
though; leave it to me, I will disperse your guests!"

She flew away before Zilah could answer; and, murmuring a word in the
ears of her friends, tapping with her little hand upon the shoulders
of the obstinate, she gradually cleared the rooms, and the sound of the
departing carriages was soon heard, as they rolled down the avenue.

Andras and Marsa were left almost alone; Varhely still remaining, and
the little Baroness, who ran up, all rosy and out of breath, to the
Prince, and said, gayly, in her laughing voice:

"Well! What do you say to that? all vanished like smoke, even Jacquemin,
who has g