the wind, and the boat glided on, cutting the smooth water, in which were reflected the long shadows of the aspens and willows on the banks, and the white clouds floating in the clear sky.  Every now and then a cry of admiration would be uttered at some object in the panorama moving before them, the slopes of Suresnes, the black factories of Saint-Denis with their lofty chimneys, the red-roofed villas of Asnieres, or the heights of Marly dotted with little white houses.

“Ah! how pretty it is!  How charming!”

“Isn’t it queer that we have never known anything about all this?  It is a veritable voyage of discovery.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” cried, above the other voices, Jacquemin, whom Zilah did not know, and to whom the Baroness had made him give a card of invitation, “we are now entering savage countries.  It is Kamtschatka, or some such place, and there must be cannibals here.”

The borders of the Seine, which were entirely fresh to them, and which recalled the pictures of the salon, were a delightful novelty to these people, accustomed to the dusty streets of the city.

Seated between the Prince and the Japanese, and opposite Varhely and General Vogotzine, the Baroness thoroughly enjoyed her breakfast.  Prince Andras had not spared the Tokay—­that sweet, fiery wine, of which the Hungarians say proudly:  “It has the color and the price of gold;” and the liquor disappeared beneath the moustache of the Russian General as in a funnel.  The little Baroness, as she sipped it with pretty little airs of an epicure, chatted with the Japanese, and, eager to increase her culinary knowledge, asked him for the receipt for a certain dish which the little yellow fellow had made her taste at a dinner given at his embassy.

“Send it to me, will you, Yamada?  I will have my cook make it; nothing gives me so much pleasure as to be able to offer to my guests a new and strange dish.  I will give you the receipt also, Jacquemin.  Oh! it is such an odd-tasting dish!  It gives you a sensation of having been poisoned.”

“Like the guests in Lucrezia Borgia,” laughed the Parisian Japanese.

“Do you know Lucrezia Borgia?”

“Oh, yes; they have sung it at Yokohama.  Oh! we are no longer savages, Baroness, believe me.  If you want ignorant barbarians, you must seek the Chinese.”

The little Japanese was proud of appearing so profoundly learned in European affairs, and his gimlet eyes sought an approving glance from Paul Jacquemin or Michel Menko; but the Hungarian was neither listening to nor thinking of Yamada.  He was entirely absorbed in the contemplation of Marsa; and, with lips a little compressed, he fixed a strange look upon the beautiful young girl to whom Andras was speaking, and who, very calm, almost grave, but evidently happy, answered the Prince with a sweet smile.