“But it is a fixed rule:  I must be in,” repeated Jacqueline, growing very uneasy.

“Must you really?  Madame Saville says it is very easy to manage those nuns—­”

“What?  Do you know Madame Saville, who was boarding at the convent last winter?”

“Yes, indeed; she is a countrywoman of ours, a friend, the most charming of women.  You will see her here this evening.  She has gained her divorce suit—­”

“You are mistaken,” said Colette, “she has lost it.  But that makes no difference.  She has got tired of her husband.  Come, say ‘Yes,’ Jacqueline—­a nice, dear ’Yes’—­you will stay, will you not?  Oh, you darling!”

They dined without much ceremony, on the pretext that the cook had been turned off that morning for impertinence, but immediately after dinner there was a procession of boys from a restaurant, bringing whipped creams, iced drinks, fruits, sweetmeats, and champagne—­more than would have been wanted at the buffet of a ball.  The Prince, they said, had sent these things.  What Prince?

As Jacqueline was asking this question, a gentleman came in whose age it would have been impossible to guess, so disguised was he by his black wig, his dyed whiskers, and the soft bloom on his cheeks, all of which were entirely out of keeping with those parts of his face that he could not change.  In one of his eyes was stuck a monocle.  He was bedizened with several orders, he bowed with military stiffness, and kissed with much devotion the ladies’ hands, calling them by titles, whether they had them or not.  His foreign accent made it as hard to detect his nationality as it was to know his age.  Two or three other gentlemen, not less decorated and not less foreign, afterward came in.  Colette named them in a whisper to Jacqueline, but their names were too hard for her to pronounce, much less to remember.  One of them, a man of handsome presence, came accompanied by a sort of female ruin, an old lady leaning on a cane, whose head, every time she moved, glittered with jewels, placed in a very lofty erection of curled hair.

“That gentleman’s mother is awfully ugly,” Jacqueline could not help saying.

“His mother?  What, the Countess?  She is neither his mother nor his wife.  He is her gentleman-in-waiting-that’s all.  Don’t you understand?  Well, imagine a man who is a sort of ‘gentleman-companion’; he keeps her accounts, he escorts her to the theatre, he gives her his arm.  It is a very satisfactory arrangement.”

“The gentleman receives a salary, in such a case?” inquired Jacqueline, much amused.

“Why, what do you find in it so extraordinary?” said Colette.  “She adores cards, and there he is, always ready to be her partner.  Oh, here comes dear Madame Saville!”

There were fresh cries of welcome, fresh exchanges of affectionate diminutives and kisses, which seemed to make the Prince’s mouth water.  Jacqueline discovered, to her great surprise, that she, too, was a dear friend of Madame Saville’s, who called her her good angel, in reference, no doubt, to the letter she had secretly put into the post.  At last she said, trying to make her escape from the party:  “But it must be nine o’clock.”