y spirituelle, an excellent
woman at heart, she gave evening parties, readings from unheard-of books,
and performances of the works of unappreciated musicians; and the
reporters, who came to absorb her salads and drink her punch, laughed at
her in their journals before their supper was digested.

The Prince, as we have said, was very fond of the Baroness, with an
affection which was almost fraternal. He pardoned her childishness and
her little absurdities for the sake of her great good qualities. "My dear
Prince," she said to him one day, "do you know that I would throw myself
into the fire for you?"

"I am sure of it; but there would not be any great merit in your doing
so."

"And why not, please?"

"Because you would not run any risk of being burned. This must be so,
because you receive in your house a crowd of highly suspicious people,
and no one has ever suspected you yourself. You are a little salamander,
the prettiest salamander I ever met. You live in fire, and you have
neither upon your face nor your reputation the slightest little scorch."

"Then you think that my guests are"----

"Charming. Only, they are of two kinds: those whom I esteem, and who do
not amuse me--often; and those who amuse me, and whom I esteem--never."

"I suppose you will not come any more to the Rue Murillo, then?"

"Certainly I shall--to see you."

And it really was to see her that the Prince went to the Baroness
Dinati's, where his melancholy characteristics clashed with so many
worldly follies and extravagances. The Baroness seemed to have a peculiar
faculty in choosing extraordinary guests: Peruvians, formerly dictators,
now become insurance agents, or generals transformed into salesmen for
some wine house; Cuban chiefs half shot to pieces by the Spaniards;
Cretes exiled by the Turks; great personages from Constantinople, escaped
from the Sultan's silken bowstring, and displaying proudly their red fez
in Paris, where the opera permitted them to continue their habits of
polygamy; Americans, whose gold-mines or petroleum-wells made them
billionaires for a winter, only to go to pieces and make them paupers the
following summer; politicians out of a place; unknown authors;
misunderstood poets; painters of the future-in short, the greater part of
the people who were invited by Prince Andras to his water-party, Baroness
Dinati having pleaded for her friends and obtained for them cards of
invitation. It was a sort of ragout of real