instant! ' Madame,' I humbly represent, 'there
are no oysters fit for the palate of a lady. There
is no salade de mâches. Covent Garden goes to
bed at eight o'clock precisely. As to the cutlets,
you can have some. As to the omelette, by all
means. As to the Charlotte, it is an impossibility,
seeing that I have no apples—unless you would
condescend to potatoes. As for the wines, you
bring them with you, paying me a shilling a cork,
and saying that mine are not fit to drink, so you
know best. In effect, I am desolated that I
cannot give you to eat as you desire; but if you
would like a mayonnaise de homard, or some
pickelle sammone de chez ce bon Monsieur Quin
in the Aimarkette, in ten minutes vous serez
à votre aise.'"

"And what does she reply?"

"She tells me to go to the five hundred devils.
She outrages the Mère Thomas. She affronts
Antoine. That woman's language smells of the
stable in which she passes her time. 'Oui,
Rataplan,' she says to me, 'je vous considère
comme le dernier des derniers.' And then,
forsooth, she must insult my sleeping cherub,
and say that poor little Adèle's pianoforte practice
distracts her nerves, and that if I do not put
a stop to it she must find another hotel. It is
likely, eh? When I pay Signer Tripanelli half a
guinea a lesson for her instruction, and know
that with two years' more practice she will be
the first pianiste of the world, and cause Thalberg
and Chopin to hang themselves in envious
despair."

"Why don't you give her her congé?"

Rataplan shrugged his shoulders. One does
not like to lose so excellent a customer. She is
worth ten guineas a week to us whenever she
comes to stay at the Hôtel Rataplan. I should
not like that Grossous, at the Hôtel Belgiosso,
to get hold of her. Tripefourbe, of the Hôtel du
Belvedere dans le Soho, has already
endeavoured to seduce her away from us. And even
the wild animal has her moments of amiability.
She gave only last week to Adèle, a brooch-
malachite, I think you call it. I saw a snuff-box
made of it, which the Cossack Alexander gave to
the Emperor at Tilsit. Only yesterday, she
threw Adèle a cashmere, a true cachemire des
Indes, in which she had burnt a hole with a red-
hot poker, in a rage because milord did not come.
Adele will soon darn up that hole. It is a
cashmere of a ravishing nature!"

"Ah! And so milord did not come, and miladi
was in a rage. Perhaps she expected him to
supper to-night, and his failure was the secret of
her temper."

"Tiens, I think not. To be sure, she sent the
commissionnaire this morning to the Albany,
where milord lives, and he was out, and lo and
behold, when she made her appearance this night,
there was a note waiting for her—a little pink
note—and having read it, she ordered the supper
I told you of."

"Then milord may be coming."

"Not at all! A little jockey, with breeches of
leather and top-boots, was here not five minutes
before your arrival. By word of mouth he delivered
the message that his master was very sorry,
but could not come. Antoine went up and told
her. She flew into one of her sulphureous
ecstasies, and nearly strangled him."

"It is now half-past twelve. Is she gone to
bed?"

"To bed! She won't seek her couch till
three. She will scold that unhappy Barbette,
her femme de chambre, till past two. Then she
will walk about the room, and smoke like a
sapper, and swear like a cuirassier, for another
hour. To bed! It is lucky for her bed that she
goes to it so late. She must quarrel with the
bolster, and kick the counterpane all night."

"I think you had better announce me."

"I warn you that she is exceedingly ferocious
to-night, and that grave results may follow
even my intrusion to announce you."

"Have no fear. She may bite, but I don't
fear her barking. I have been a keeper in the
Jardiu des Plantes, and am not afraid of wild
animals. Allons, mon bou. Do as I tell you."

Rataplan rose with anything but a good
grace, and murmuring something about the
inexpediency of bearding tigresses in their den.
He shuffled up stairs. Constant heard him
timorously tap at a door. Then there was a
tempest of words audible—confined, however, to
a single voice; and after a while the host
descended to the salle à manger again, with
something positively approaching a faint violet flush
on his pale face.

"I told you so," he said. "She is a panther
of the Island of Java. A beautiful jaguar.
However, if you are fond of wild beasts, there
she is. Go, my friend, and be devoured. And
he sat down, drew the candle closer to him,
mixed himself a fresh tumbler of "gzog," re-illumined
the butt-end of his cigar—a Frenchman
never desists until the weed begins to bum the
tip of his nose, and then he sticks the stump on
the point of a penknife—and so resumed his
perusal of the Siècle seven days old.

Monsieur Constant went quietly up-stairs, and
softly laid his hand upon the handle of the door
of the front drawing-room. I must keep Monsieur
Constant with his hand upon the handle
for the space of two chapters, while I cross the
water on an excursion very necessary to this
narrative.

CHAPTER X.     BEGINS AN IDYLL.

IN the department of the Bouches du Rhône,
and in the neighbourhood of Avignon, there are
few prettier villages than Marouille-le-Gency,
in the sous-préfecture of Nougat.

There are not ten houses of more than one
story, and not above a hundred cottages; but
they are all pretty. They are built, mostly of
stone, or of sunburnt bricks whitened over, and
roofed in with those convex tiles, laid on loose,
and secured only by pegs, such as you see in
Italian villages. White as are their fronts, they