a salamander--her "svelte" body
seemingly boneless in its gown of clinging scales. Her hair is
purple-black and freshly onduled; her skin as white as ivory. She has
the habit of throwing back her small, well-posed head, while under their
delicately penciled lids her gray eyes take in the room at a glance.

She is not of the Quarter, but the Taverne du Pantheon is a refuge for
her at times, when she grows tired of Paillard's and Maxim's and her
quarreling retinue.

"Let them howl on the other bank of the Seine," says this empress of
the half-world to herself, "I dine with Raoul where I please."

And now one glittering, red arm with its small, heavily-jeweled hand
glides toward Raoul's open cigarette case, and in withdrawing a
cigarette she presses for a moment his big, strong hand as he holds near
her polished nails the flaming match.

[Illustration: ALONG THE SEINE]

Her companion watches her as she smokes and talks--now and then he leans
closer to her, squaring his broad shoulders and bending lower his
strong, determined face, as he listens to her,--half-amused, replying to
her questions leisurely, in short, crisp sentences. Suddenly she stamps
one little foot savagely under the table, and, clenching her jeweled
hands, breathes heavily. She is trembling with rage; the man at her side
hunches his great shoulders, flicks the ashes from his cigarette, looks
at her keenly for a moment, and then smiles. In a moment she is herself
again, almost penitent; this little savage, half Roumanian, half
Russian, has never known what it was to be ruled! She has seen men grow
white when she has stamped her little foot, but this big Raoul, whom she
loves--who once held a garrison with a handful of men--he does not
tremble! she loves him for his devil-me-care indifference--and he enjoys
her temper.

But the salamander remembers there are some whom she dominated, until
they groveled like slaves at her feet; even the great Russian nobleman
turned pale when she dictated to him archly and with the voice of an
angel the price of his freedom.

"Poor fool! he shot himself the next day," mused the salamander.

Yes, and even the adamant old banker in Paris, crabbed, stern,
unrelenting to his debtors--shivered in his boots and ended in signing
away half his fortune to her, and moved his family into a permanent
chateau in the country, where he keeps himself busy with his shooting
and his books.

* * * * *

As it