There was confusion in the Princess Conti’s bedroom, the amazing confusion which boils up about an utterly careless woman of the great world, if she be accidentally left without a maid for twenty-four hours.  It seemed as if everything the Princess possessed in the way of clothes, necessary and unnecessary, had been torn from wardrobes and chests of drawers by a cyclone and scattered in every direction, till there was not space to move or sit down in a room which was thirty feet square.

Princess Conti was a very stout woman of about the same age as her visitor, but not resembling her in the least.  She had been beautiful, and still kept the dazzling complexion and magnificent eyes for which she had been famous.  It was her boast that she slept eight hours every night, without waking, whatever happened, and she always advised everybody to do the same, with an airy indifference to possibilities which would have done credit to a doctor.

She was dressed, or rather wrapped, in a magnificent purple velvet dressing-gown, trimmed with sable, and tied round her ample waist with a silver cord; her rather scanty grey hair stood out about her head like a cloud in a high wind; and her plump hands were encased in a pair of old white gloves, which looked oddly out of place.  She was standing in the middle of the room, and she smiled calmly as the Baroness entered.  On a beautiful inlaid table beside her stood a battered brass tray with an almost shapeless little brass coffee-pot, a common earthenware cup, chipped at the edges, and three pieces of doubtful-looking sugar in a tiny saucer, also of brass.  The whole had evidently been brought from a small cafe near by, which had long been frequented by the servants from the palace.

Judging from her smile, the Princess seemed to think total ruin rather an amusing incident.  She had always complained that the Romans were very dull; for she was not a Roman herself, but came of a very great old Polish family, the members of which had been distinguished for divers forms of amiable eccentricity during a couple of centuries.

She looked at the Baroness, and smiled pleasantly, showing her still perfect teeth.

“I always said that this would happen,” she observed.  “I always told my poor husband so.”

As the Prince had been dead ten years, the Baroness thought that he might not be wholly responsible for the ruin of his estate, but she discreetly avoided the suggestion.  She began to make a little apology for her visit.

“But I am delighted to see you!” cried the Princess.  “You can help me to pack.  You know I have not a single maid, not a woman in the house, nor a man either.  Those ridiculous servants fled last night as if we had the plague!”

“So you are going out of town?” enquired the Baroness, laying down her parasol.

“Of course.  Clementina has decided to be a nun, and is going to the convent this morning.  So sensible of her, poor dear!  It is true that she has made up her mind to do it three or four times before now, but the circumstances were different, and I hope this will be final.  She will be much happier.”