had left on Marguerite's face the virginal, almost childlike
expression, which characterized it, is a problem which we can but state,
without attempting to solve it.

Marguerite had a marvellous portrait of herself, by Vidal, the only man
whose pencil could do her justice. I had this portrait by me for a few
days after her death, and the likeness was so astonishing that it has
helped to refresh my memory in regard to some points which I might not
otherwise have remembered.

Some among the details of this chapter did not reach me until later,
but I write them here so as not to be obliged to return to them when the
story itself has begun.

Marguerite was always present at every first night, and passed every
evening either at the theatre or the ball. Whenever there was a new
piece she was certain to be seen, and she invariably had three things
with her on the ledge of her ground-floor box: her opera-glass, a bag of
sweets, and a bouquet of camellias.

For twenty-five days of the month the camellias were white, and for five
they were red; no one ever knew the reason of this change of colour,
which I mention though I can not explain it; it was noticed both by her
friends and by the habitue's of the theatres to which she most often
went. She was never seen with any flowers but camellias. At the
florist's, Madame Barjon's, she had come to be called "the Lady of the
Camellias," and the name stuck to her.

Like all those who move in a certain set in Paris, I knew that
Marguerite had lived with some of the most fashionable young men in
society, that she spoke of it openly, and that they themselves
boasted of it; so that all seemed equally pleased with one another.
Nevertheless, for about three years, after a visit to Bagnees, she was
said to be living with an old duke, a foreigner, enormously rich, who
had tried to remove her as far as possible from her former life, and, as
it seemed, entirely to her own satisfaction.

This is what I was told on the subject. In the spring of 1847 Marguerite
was so ill that the doctors ordered her to take the waters, and she went
to Bagneres. Among the invalids was the daughter of this duke; she
was not only suffering from the same complaint, but she was so like
Marguerite in appearance that they might have been taken for sisters;
the young duchess was in the last stage of consumption, and a few days
after Marguerite's arrival she died. One morning, the duke, who had
remained at Bagneres to