Parisian modishness, gave a fete in which the guests were requested to
appear in classical costume, whose severe simplicity she fancied would
be more becoming to the plenitude of her own Juno-like charms than to
the slight figure of the French girl. But the Princess vanquished her
hostess for she came as a Bacchante in a robe of her own designing,
bordered with vine leaves embroidered in gold and belted beneath the
breasts with a golden girdle. A mantle of panther's fur swept from her
shoulders, her arms and her bust were laden with heavy necklaces and
bracelets taken from some Etruscan tomb, and she waved a golden thyrsus.
Her entrance illuminated the ball-room and the character which she
represented gave her authority for giving free vent to her natural
vivacity and dancing with the utmost grace and abandon. Her victory over
the male part of the assembly was complete for they saw no one else that
evening.

They were wrong who supposed that her beauty was enhanced by dress; on
the contrary it was limited by the clothing which it adorned. The
sculptor Canova proved this in his portrait statue of her as Venus
Victorious, and then her detractors, affecting to be greatly
scandalised, changed their tune and declared that it was false that the
Princess was too fond of dress, that on the contrary a greater regard
for it would have been more decent.

The young secretary was not a little troubled by the caprice of his
patroness to thus display her beauty to the world. "But why not, my
Celio?" she had argued. "The Prince, my husband, has bestowed upon me a
great title for which I feel my obligation to his noble family, and I
shall pay it with interest, for I shall leave the Borgheses this
incomparable statue, and the glory of having possessed one Princess
whose beauty cannot be denied or equalled."

Why Prince Borghese should have deputed this dragon service to another
instead of undertaking it himself, is a question which I cannot answer.
Some misunderstanding doubtless there was, or two people who loved each
other would never have agreed that it was better to live apart, but the
Prince carried a sore and longing heart with him to Florence, and it may
be that the Princess was no happier, though she had more bravado.

"I will come when you send for me and not before," her husband said to
her, "and I trust you understand the motives which underlie my
self-banishment."

"I am grateful to them at least," was her equivocal re