Grey Roses. Harland Henry

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СКАЧАТЬ meet half the lions that were at large in the town—authors, painters, actors, actresses, deputies, even an occasional Cabinet minister. Red ribbons and red rosettes shone from every corner of the room. She had become one of the oligarchs of la haute Bohème, she had become one of the celebrities of Paris. It would be tiresome to count the novels, poems, songs, that were dedicated to her, the portraits of her, painted or sculptured, that appeared at the Mirlitons or the Palais de l'Industrie. Numberless were the partis who asked her to marry them (I know one, at least, who has returned to the charge again and again), but she only laughed, and vowed she would never marry. I don't say that she has never had her fancies, her experiences; but she has consistently scoffed at marriage. At any rate, she has never affected the least repentance for what some people would call her 'fault.' Her ideas of right and wrong have undergone very little modification. She was deceived in her estimate of the character of Ernest Mayer, if you please; but she would indignantly deny that there was anything sinful, anything to be ashamed of, in her relations with him. And if, by reason of them, she at one time suffered a good deal of pain, I am sure she accounts Camille an exceeding great compensation. That Camille is her child she would scorn to make a secret. She has scorned to assume the conciliatory title of Madame. As plain Mademoiselle, with a daughter, you must take her or leave her. And, somehow, all this has not seemed to make the faintest difference to her clientèle, not even to the primmest of the English. I can't think of one of them who did not treat her with deference, like her, and recommend her house.

      But her house they need recommend no more, for she has sold it. Last spring, when I was in Paris, she told me she was about to do so. 'Ouf! I have lived with my nose to the grindstone long enough. I am going to "retire."' What money she had saved from season to season, she explained, she had entrusted to her friend Baron C——for speculation. 'He is a wizard, and so I am a rich woman. I shall have an income of something like three thousand pounds, mon cher! Oh, we will roll in it. I have had ten bad years—ten hateful years. You don't know how I have hated it all, this business, this drudgery, this cut-and-dried, methodical existence—moi, enfant de Bohème! But, enfin, it was obligatory. Now we will change all that. Nous reviendrons à nos premières amours. I shall have ten good years—ten years of barefaced pleasure. Then—I will range myself—perhaps. There is the darlingest little house for sale, a sort of châlet, built of red brick, with pointed windows and things, in the Rue de Lisbonne. I shall buy it—furnish it—decorate it. Oh, you will see. I shall have my carriage, I shall have toilets, I shall entertain, I shall give dinners—olàlà! No more boarders, no more bores, cares, responsibilities. Only my friends and—life! I feel like one emerging from ten years in the galleys, ten years of penal servitude. To the Pension Childe—bonsoir!'

      'That's all very well for you,' her listener complained sombrely. 'But for me? Where shall I stop when I come to Paris?'

      'With me. You shall be my guest. I will kill you if you ever go elsewhere. You shall pass your old age in a big chair in the best room, and Camille and I will nurse your gout and make herb-tea for you.'

      'And I shall sit and think of what might have been.'

      'Yes, we'll indulge all your little foibles. You shall sit and "feel foolish"—from dawn to dewy eve.'

XII.

       Table of Contents

      If you had chanced to be walking in the Bois-de-Boulogne this afternoon, you might have seen a smart little basket-phaeton flash past, drawn by two glossy frays, and driven by a woman—a woman with sparkling eyes, a lovely colour, great quantities of soft dark hair, and a figure—

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