ing for impertinence, but immediately after dinner
there was a procession of boys from a restaurant, bringing whipped
creams, iced drinks, fruits, sweetmeats, and champagne--more than would
have been wanted at the buffet of a ball. The Prince, they said, had
sent these things. What Prince?

As Jacqueline was asking this question, a gentleman came in whose age
it would have been impossible to guess, so disguised was he by his black
wig, his dyed whiskers, and the soft bloom on his cheeks, all of which
were entirely out of keeping with those parts of his face that he could
not change. In one of his eyes was stuck a monocle. He was bedizened
with several orders, he bowed with military stiffness, and kissed with
much devotion the ladies' hands, calling them by titles, whether they
had them or not. His foreign accent made it as hard to detect his
nationality as it was to know his age. Two or three other gentlemen, not
less decorated and not less foreign, afterward came in. Colette named
them in a whisper to Jacqueline, but their names were too hard for her
to pronounce, much less to remember. One of them, a man of handsome
presence, came accompanied by a sort of female ruin, an old lady leaning
on a cane, whose head, every time she moved, glittered with jewels,
placed in a very lofty erection of curled hair.

"That gentleman's mother is awfully ugly," Jacqueline could not help
saying.

"His mother? What, the Countess? She is neither his mother nor his wife.
He is her gentleman-in-waiting-that's all. Don't you understand? Well,
imagine a man who is a sort of 'gentleman-companion'; he keeps her
accounts, he escorts her to the theatre, he gives her his arm. It is a
very satisfactory arrangement."

"The gentleman receives a salary, in such a case?" inquired Jacqueline,
much amused.

"Why, what do you find in it so extraordinary?" said Colette. "She
adores cards, and there he is, always ready to be her partner. Oh, here
comes dear Madame Saville!"

There were fresh cries of welcome, fresh exchanges of affectionate
diminutives and kisses, which seemed to make the Prince's mouth water.
Jacqueline discovered, to her great surprise, that she, too, was a dear
friend of Madame Saville's, who called her her good angel, in reference,
no doubt, to the letter she had secretly put into the post. At last she
said, trying to make her escape from the party: "But it must be nine
o'clock."

"Oh! but--you must hear Szmera."

A handsome