udience. But to get back to my experience with her on the
steamer. I found that she occupied the most expensive deck stateroom,
and had a maid and a man servant traveling with her; so that I refused
all of her renewed offers for the bear when I found the powerful
fascination it had for her, and I finally consented to let her try the
experiment of working with a group of animals. You know the class from
which trainers are usually recruited, and you can imagine the interest
I take in a woman who possesses an absolute fearlessness which is
inherited from generations of ancestors who have never shown the white
feather, in addition to education and intelligence. The only thing which
puzzled me was her motive, and that I have not discovered yet, although
the ambassador, who had received all sorts of communications about her
from his own government, told me her history. It seems that she has
always been noted for her eccentricity and her rebellion against the
strict laws of convention which were supposed to control her life, and
this is not the first time she has defied them. She had commissioned the
artist--who, by the way, is one of the most celebrated men in Paris--to
paint a portrait of her. At the same time he was painting an exhibition
picture to be called the 'Dancing Bear,' and had purchased Mephisto for
a model. The picture was to represent the bear dancing on its hind legs
opposite a woman, to the music of a flageolet played by a man bear
leader--such an exhibition as is commonly given at the country fairs
throughout Europe. He had no difficulty in getting a male model, but he
was in despair about the woman dancer. He tried model after model, and
although they started in all right each one became so nervous after a
sitting or two that they refused to continue. The bear was chained to
the wall and they were posed safely out of reach, but each of them
asserted that the animal was like a serpent and trying to charm them so
that they would come close enough to be caught. They were all afraid
that they might yield to the fascination and be seriously injured.
Tramp, the cat, would probably have told the same story if he had been
able to talk.

"As a matter of curiosity the artist experimented with men, but the bear
appeared indifferent to them and the men made no complaint. It only
seemed to exercise this strange hypnotic power over women--and cats--for
the artist found two Persian felines, which had been studio pets, dead