r name. The other was Countess Rastaglione; you
must have heard of her; a towering witch, an empress, Helen of Troy;
though Ducie would have it the brunette was Queen of Paris. For French
taste, if you like.'

Countess Rastaglione was a lady enamelled on the scroll of Fame. 'Did
you see them together?' said Beauchamp. 'They weren't together?'

Palmet looked at him and laughed. 'You're yourself again, are you? Go to
Paris in January, and cut out the Frenchmen.'

'Answer me, Palmet: they weren't in couples?'

'I fancy not. It was luck to meet them, so they couldn't have been.'

'Did you dance with either of them?'

Unable to state accurately that he had, Palmet cried, 'Oh! for dancing,
the Frenchwoman beat the Italian.'

'Did you see her often--more than once?'

'My dear fellow, I went everywhere to see her: balls, theatres,
promenades, rides, churches.'

'And you say she dressed up to the Italian, to challenge her, rival
her?'

'Only one night; simple accident. Everybody noticed it, for they stood
for Night and Day,--both hung with gold; the brunette Etruscan, and the
blonde Asiatic; and every Frenchman present was epigramizing up and down
the rooms like mad.'

'Her husband 's Legitimist; he wouldn't be at the Tuileries?' Beauchamp
spoke half to himself.

'What, then, what?' Palmet stared and chuckled. 'Her husband must
have taken the Tuileries' bait, if we mean the same woman. My dear old
Beauchamp, have I seen her, then? She's a darling! The Rastaglione was
nothing to her. When you do light on a grand smoky pearl, the milky
ones may go and decorate plaster. That's what I say of the loveliest
brunettes. It must be the same: there can't be a couple of dark beauties
in Paris without a noise about them. Marquise--? I shall recollect her
name presently.'

'Here's one of the houses I stop at,' said Beauchamp, 'and drop that
subject.'

A scared servant-girl brought out her wizened mistress to confront the
candidate, and to this representative of the sex he addressed his arts
of persuasion, requesting her to repeat his words to her husband. The
contrast between Beauchamp palpably canvassing and the Beauchamp who was
the lover of the Marquise of the forgotten name, struck too powerfully
on Palmet for his gravity he retreated.

Beauchamp found him sauntering on the pavement, and would have dismissed
him but for an agreeable diversion that occurred at that moment. A
suavely smiling unctuous old gentleman advan