deeply in love with the boy, and idealized his feeling for her until it had seemed that she had never before been so happy. She had even been on the point at one time, she recalled with shame, of offering him marriage. She had, as a matter of fact, done something even worse: she had thrown caution into the waste-basket—with certain essential reservations, for in her most impulsive acts she always retained a regard for the convenances—and had travelled with the troupe . . . as his mistress. She buried her face in her hands. as his mistress! Dijon, Avignon, Orange, Nîmes . . . where not? Gradually, she had become aware that Mlle. Gabrielle Desparges, the soprano of the organization, herself held some kind of lien on the tenor. Occasionally Tony had excused himself, explaining that he was too tired to dine with the Countess. By bribing a waiter it was easy to discover that Mlle. Desparges had dined with him in his room. And how much these infidelities cost the Countess in gold as well as pain! He was spending her money on this woman! Degradation, it would seem, could go no further, but it did. She had paid his amende, borne him off to Paris, and established him in an apartment in the Rue de la Pompe. There she had visited him, except for the few occasions when she had bidden him come to her. The pink salon was darkened, the blinds drawn. My God! how happy she had been! What weeks of pleasure until . . . One day she had told him that
