e Middle
West and the poor relations of royalty might be heard exchanging
confidences and foreign tongues. So, as I climbed the hill at the verge
of the chalk and pasture, I felt sure of the unexpected, nor was I
disappointed. Shrill voices from my fellow countrywomen came down the
garden path and assured me that art had accompanied Mme. Vezin in her
annual retreat from the Luxembourg Gardens. Entering I found the same
perfect hostess and much the old dear, queer scene. I was bracing myself
for a polyglot evening--being with all my travel quite incapable of
languages--when the little maid announced importantly Mme. la Marquise
del Puente. All rose instinctively as there entered an erect white-haired
woman simply dressed in a black gown along which hung a notable crimson
scarf. Murmuring the indispensable banalities I bowed distantly, meaning
to observe her impersonally before an encounter. But she disarmed me by
throwing herself on my mercy. She knew me already through dear Mr. Hanson
Brooks. It was her first visit here; I, she saw, was of the household.
Would I not show her the curiosities and protect her from the bores?
Sullenly I followed her while she discussed the bijoux that littered the
shelves, and the deep modulations of her voice insensibly mollified me. I
had intended in Anitchkoff's behalf to count every wrinkle of her
seventy-five unhallowed years, but found myself instead admiring her
cloud of silver hair, avoiding the gaze of her black eyes, and noting
with a kind of fascination the precise gestures of her fine hand as she
took up or set down Mme. Vezin's poor little things.

At last she settled into an armchair, beckoning me to a footstool, and I
began to talk unconscionably, she urging me on. She professed to know my
writings--it was of course impossible that she should have seen those
rare anonymous letters to the most ladylike of Boston newspapers: she
touched my dearest hobby, that republics and governments generally must
be judged not by their politics but by the amenity of the social life
they foster. Feeling that this was witchcraft or divination even more
questionable, and dreading she had another Giorgione to sell, I made a
last futile effort for freedom, proposing introductions. With a phrase
she subdued me, and my halting French began to be eloquent. I confessed
my innermost ambition, the creation of a criticism learned and judicial
in substance but impressionistic in form. She dwelt upon the b