oward Felix. In Antonino, she saw the possible instrument of her
vengeance. His good looks, fervid temperament, youthful
impressionability, all conspired in her favor as well as the innate
artistic craving which had at the first sight lifted her on a pedestal
as his ideal of the woman to be idolized.

Nevertheless, the vagabond had a stronger spirit than she anticipated,
and the emotion which she set down as timidity, and which protected him
from the baseness of deceiving his benefactor, was due to honor. She
flattered herself that she could pluck the fruit at any time, and, since
this moneyless youth could not in the least appease her yearning for
inordinate luxury, she cast about for another conquest.

Clemenceau would not hear of his home being turned into the pandemonium
of a country-house receiving all "the society that amuses," and rigidly
restricted his wife from visiting where she would meet the odd medley in
the suburbs of Paris. Retired opera-singers, Bohemians who have made a
fortune by chance, superseded politicians, officials who have perfected
libeling into an art, and reformed female celebrities of the
dancing-gardens and burlesque theatres. But, as society is constituted,
it would have earned him the reputation of a tyrant if he had refused
her receiving and returning the visits of the venerable Marchioness de
Latour-Lagneau, to whom the Bishop always accorded an hour during his
pastoral calls. This was a neighbor.

In her old Louis XIV. mansion, conspicuous among the new structures, the
old dame, in silvered hair which needed no powder, welcomed the "best
people" in the neighborhood and a surprising number of visitors who "ran
down" from the city. Considering her age, her activity in playing the
hostess was remarkable. On the other hand, the "at homes" were most
respectable, and the music remained "classical;" not an echo of
Offenbach or Strauss; the conversation was restrained and decorous and
the scandal delicately dressed to offend no ear.

Not all were old who came to the chateau, and the foreigners were
numerous to give variety to the gatherings; but the white neck-cloth and
black coat suppressed gaiety in even the rising youth, who were destined
for places under government or on boards of finance and commerce.

It may be judged that an afternoon spent in such company was little
change to Madame Clemenceau, and that the five o'clock tea, initiated
from the English, was a kind of penitential dri