The little Baroness was ubiquitous, laughing, chattering, enjoying herself to her heart’s content, and telling every one that she was to leave that very evening for Trouviile, with trunks, and trunks, and trunks—­a host of them!  But then, it was race-week, you know!

With her eyeglasses perched upon her little nose, she stopped before a statuette, a picture, no matter what, exclaiming, merrily: 

“Oh, how pretty that is!  How pretty it is!  It is a Tanagra!  How queer those Tanagras are.  They prove that love existed in antiquity, don’t they, Varhely?  Oh!  I forgot; what do you know about love?”

At last, with a glass of champagne in her hand, she paused before a portrait of Marsa, a strange, powerful picture, the work of an artist who knew how to put soul into his painting.

“Ah! this is superb!  Who painted it, Marsa?”

“Zichy,” replied Marsa.

“Ah, yes, Zichy!  I am no longer astonished.  By the way, there is another Hungarian artist who paints very well.  I have heard of him.  He is an old man; I don’t exactly remember his name, something like Barabas.”

“Nicolas de Baratras,” said Varhely.

“Yes, that’s it.  It seems he is a master.  But your Zichy pleases me infinitely.  He has caught your eyes and expression wonderfully; it is exactly like you, Princess.  I should like to have my portrait painted by him.  His first name is Michel, is it not?”

She examined the signature, peering through her eyeglass, close to the canvas.

“Yes, I knew it was.  Michel Zichy!”

This name of “Michel!” suddenly pronounced, sped like an arrow through Marsa’s heart.  She closed her eyes as if to shut out some hateful vision, and abruptly quitted the Baroness, who proceeded to analyze Zichy’s portrait as she did the pictures in the salon on varnishing day.  Marsa went toward other friends, answering their flatteries with smiles, and forcing herself to talk and forget.

Andras, in the midst of the crowd where Vogotzine’s loud laugh alternated with the little cries of the Baroness, felt a complex sentiment:  he wished his friends to enjoy themselves and yet he longed to be alone with Marsa, and to take her away.  They were to go first to his hotel in Paris; and then to some obscure corner, probably to the villa of Sainte-Adresse, until September, when they were going to Venice, and from there to Rome for the winter.

It seemed to the Prince that all these people were taking away from him a part of his life.  Marsa belonged to them, as she went from one to another, replying to the compliments which desperately resembled one another, from those of Angelo Valla, which were spoken in Italian, to those of little Yamada, the Parisianized Japanese.  Andras now longed for the solitude of the preceding days; and Baroness Dinati, shaking her finger at him, said:  “My dear Prince, you are longing to see us go, I know you are.  Oh! don’t say you are not!  I am sure of it, and I can understand it.  We had no lunch at my marriage.  The Baron simply carried me off at the door of the church.  Carried me off!  How romantic that sounds!  It suggests an elopement with a coach and four!  Have no fear, though; leave it to me, I will disperse your guests!”