cement of the baptism, they learned that the
greatest ladies in France could be seen at the Baroness Hemerlingue's
Saturdays, Mmes. Gugenheim, Furenberg, Caraiscaki, Maurice Trott--all
wives of millionaires celebrated on the markets of Tunis--gave up their
prejudices and begged to be invited to the former slave's receptions.
Mme. Jansoulet alone--newly arrived with a stock of cumbersome Oriental
ideas in her mind, like her ostrich eggs, her narghile pipe, and the
Tunisian _bric-a-brac_ in her rooms--protested against what she called
an impropriety, a cowardice, and declared that she would never set her
foot at _her_ house. Soon a little retrograde movement was felt round
the Gugenheims, the Caraiscaki, and the other people, as happens at
Paris every time when some irregular position, endeavouring to establish
itself, brings on regrets and defections. They had gone too far to draw
back, but they resolved to make the value of their good-will, of their
sacrificed prejudices, felt, and the Baroness Marie well understood the
shade of meaning in the protecting tone of the Levantines, treating her
as "My dear child," "My dear good girl," with an almost contemptuous
pride. Thenceforward her hatred of the Jansoulets knew no bounds--the
complicated ferocious hatred of the seraglio, with strangling and the
sack at the end, perhaps more difficult to arrive at in Paris than
on the banks of the lake of El Bahaira, but for which she had already
prepared the stout sack and the cord.

One can imagine, knowing all this, what was the surprise and agitation
of this corner of exotic society, when the news spread, not only that
the great Afchin--as these ladies called her--had consented to see the
baroness, but that she would pay her first visit on her next Saturday.
Neither the Fuernbergs nor the Trotts would wish to miss such an
occasion. On her side, the baroness did everything in her power to give
the utmost brilliancy to this solemn reparation. She wrote, she visited,
and succeeded so well, that in spite of the lateness of the season, Mme.
Jansoulet, on arriving at four o'clock at the Faubourg Saint-Honore,
would have seen drawn up before the great arched doorway, side by side
with the discreet russet livery of the Princess de Dion, and of
many authentic _blasons_, the pretentious and fictitious arms, the
multicoloured wheels of a crowd of plutocrat equipages, and the tall
powdered lackeys of the Caraiscaki.

Above, in the reception ro