Strahlberg had already urged Jacqueline to come and make
acquaintance with her "paradise," without giving her any hint of the
delights of that paradise, from which that of gambling was not excluded,
for Madame Strahlberg was eager for any kind of excitement. Roulette now
occupied with her a large part of every night--indeed, her nights had
been rarely given to slumber, for her creed was that morning is the time
for sleep, for which reason they never took breakfast in the pink villa,
but tea, cakes, and confectionery were eaten instead at all hours until
the evening. Thus it happened very often that they had no dinner, and
guests had to accommodate themselves to the strange ways of the family.
Jacqueline, however, did not stay long enough to know much of those
ways.

She arrived, poor thing, with weary wing, like some bird, who, escaping
from the fowler's net, where it has left its feathers, flies straight to
the spot where a sportsman lies ready to shoot it. She was received
with the same cries of joy, the same kisses, the same demonstrations of
affection, as those which, the summer before, had welcomed her to the
Rue de Naples. They told her she could sleep on a sofa, exactly like the
one on which she had passed that terrible night which had resulted in
her expulsion from the convent; and it was decided that she must stay
several days, at least, before she went on to Paris, to begin the
life of hard study and courageous work which would make of her a great
singer.

Tired?--No, she was hardly tired at all. The journey over the enchanting
road of the Corniche had awakened in her a fervor of admiration which
prevented her from feeling any bodily needs, and now she seemed to have
reached fairyland, where the verdure of the tropics was like the hanging
gardens of Babylon, only those had never had a mirror to reflect back
their ancient, far-famed splendor, like that before her eyes, as she
looked down upon the Mediterranean, with the sun setting in the west in
a sky all crimson and gold.

Notwithstanding the disorder of her travelling-dress, Jacqueline allowed
her friend to take her straight from the railway station to the Terrace
of Monte Carlo. She fell into ecstasies at sight of the African cacti,
the century plants, and the fig-trees of Barbary, covering the low
walls whence they looked down into the water; at the fragrance of the
evergreens that surrounded the beautiful palace with its balustrades,
dedicated to all