nity. Would it become, then, somewhat the
Talleyrand type? How many distinguished men have been fat. Napoleon,
Renan, Gibbon, Dr. Johnson--" she turned her sheet as she mildly brought
out the desultory list. "And all seem to end in n, do they not? I am
glad that I asked Mr. Drew. He flavours the dish like an aromatic herb;
and what a success he has been; _hein_? But he is the type of personal
success. He is independent, indifferent, individual."

"Ah, my dear, you are too generous to that young man," Miss Scrotton
mused. "It's beautiful, it's wonderful to watch; but you are, indeed,
too kind to him." She mused, she was absent, yet she knew, and knew that
Mercedes knew, that never before in all their intercourse had she
ventured on such a speech. It implied watchfulness; it implied
criticism; it implied, even, anxiety; it implied all manner of things
that it was not permitted for a satellite to say.

The Baroness's eyes were on her letter, and though she did not raise
them her dark brows lifted. "_Tiens_," she continued, "you find that I
am too kind to him?"

Miss Scrotton, to keep up the appearance of ingenuousness, was forced to
further definition. "I don't think, darling, that in your sympathy, your
solicitude, where young talent is concerned, you quite realize how much
you give, how much you can be made use of. The man admires you, of
course, and has, of course, talent of a sort. Yet, when I see you
together, I confess that I receive sometimes the impression of a
scattering of pearls."

Madame von Marwitz laid down her letter. "Ah! ah!--oh! oh!--_ma bonne_,"
she said. She laughed out. Her eyes were lit with dancing sparks. "Do
you know you speak as if you were very, very jealous of this young man
who is found so charming?"

"Jealous, my dear Mercedes?" Miss Scrotton's emotion showed itself in a
dark flush.

"_Mais oui; mais oui_; you tell me that my friend is a swine. Does
that not mean that you, of late, have received too few pearls?"

"My dear Mercedes! Who called him a swine?"

"One doesn't speak of scattered pearls without rousing these
associations." Her tone was beaming.

Was it possible to swallow such an affront? Was it possible not to? And
she had brought it upon herself. There was comfort and a certain
restoration of dignity in this thought. Miss Scrotton, struggling
inwardly, feigned lightness. "So few of us are worthy of your pearls,
dear. Unworthiness doesn't, I hope, consign us to the porcine