ried of
this constant grasping at the unattainable Iza, who had something of a
heart, chose for herself, much as her elder had done, with happiness at
home as the object; one fine morning, married M. Pierre Clemenceau, a
young but rising sculptor. He had on the previous visit of theirs to
Paris, materially befriended them. It was only gratitude after all,
although he, enamored like an artist of this unrivaled beauty, would
have sacrificed fortune to possess her. Indeed, he sacrificed all--even
his honor, for he suffered himself to be gulled by her wiles as
profoundly as he was infatuated by her charms.

At this point, as became a young woman telling of a relative's iniquity,
Kaiserina glazed the facts and gave a perversion. It was later,
therefore, that Felix Clemenceau learned in detail the whole mournful
tale of a beautiful wanton's ingrained perfidy and a loving husband's
blind confidence. The end was inevitably tragical. Lergins was decoyed
by the countess to Paris, where she languished like a shark out of
water. The sculptor's income did not come up to her dreams of luxury,
any more than those she inspired in her daughter. She brought about a
separation of the wedded pair and rejoiced when a fresh scandal
necessitated a duel between the young Russian and the Frenchman.
Unhappily for her revengeful ideas, it passed over harmlessly enough.

Iza remained the talk and admiration of the gay capital, although women
of superior physical attractions rendezvous there. Nothing blemished her
appearance; no excesses, no indulgements, not even bearing a son had a
blighting effect. Unfortunately for the dissevered artist, she had been
his model for the most renowned of his works and her name was
inseparably intertwined with his own.

Although "crowned" as the favorite of a king who came in transparent
incognito to Paris to visit her, though occupying princely quarters,
outshining the fading La Mesard and the rising Julia Barucci in
diamonds, Iza was still known as "the Clemenceau Statue."

Her mother, as lost to shame, was the mistress of the wardrobe in this
palace; she was spiteful as a witch, and began to resemble one in her
prime, bloated, red with importance and self-indulgence, before the
wrinkles came many and fast. One day, annoyed at the persistency with
which a friend of Clemenceau's watched the queen of the disreputable in
hopes to make her flagrancy a cause for legal annulment of the marriage,
she denounced him a