cases.  Scattered about the great living-room, dining-room, music-room and library were enough rugs, divans and chairs as well as musical instruments—­a piano among others—­to give the place an air of completeness and luxury.  The walls and ceilings had already been decorated—­in a most florid manner, I must say.  Outside were great balconies and verandahs commanding, as the following morning proved, a very splendid view of a very bleak sea.  The sand dunes!  The distant floor of the sea!  The ships!  Upstairs were nine suites of one- and two-rooms and bath.  The basement was an intricate world of kitchen, pantry, engine-room, furnace, wine cellars and what not.  Outside was a tawny waste of sand held together in places in the form of hummocks and even concealing hills by sand-binding grasses.

That night, because it was windy and dull and bleak, we stayed inside, I for one going outside only long enough to discover that there were great wide verandahs of concrete about the house, fit for great entertainments in themselves, and near at hand, hummocks of sand.  Inside all was warm and flaring enough.  The wine cellar seemed to contain all that one might reasonably desire.  Our host once out here was most gay in his mood.  He was most pleasantly interested in the progress of his new home, although not intensely so.  He seemed to have lived a great deal and to be making the best of everything as though it were something to go through with.  With much talking on the part of us all, the evening passed swiftly enough.  Some of the men could play and sing.  One poet recited enchanting bits of verse.  For our inspection certain pieces of furniture and statuary were unpacked and displayed—­a bronze faun some three feet in height, for one thing.  All the time I was sensible of being in contact with some one who was really in touch with life in a very large way, financially and otherwise.  His mind seemed to be busy with all sorts of things.  There were two Syrians in Paris, he said, who owned a large collection of rugs suitable for an exhibition.  He had an agent who was trying to secure the best of them for his new home.  De Shay had recently introduced him to a certain Italian count who had a great house in Italy but could not afford its upkeep.  He was going to take over a portion of its furnishings, after due verification, of course.  Did I know the paintings of Monticelli and Mancini?  He had just secured excellent examples of both.  Some time when his new home was further along I must come out.  Then the pictures would be hung, the statuary and furniture in place.  He would get up a week-end party for a select group.

The talk drifted to music and the stage.  At once I saw that because of his taste, wealth and skill, women formed a large and yet rather toy-like portion of his life, holding about as much relation to his inner life as do the concubines of an Asiatic sultan.  Madame of the earrings, as I learned from De Shay, was a source of great expense to him, but at that she was elusive, not easily to be come at.  The stage and Broadway were full of many beauties in various walks of life, many of whom he knew or to whom he could obtain access.  Did I know thus, and so—­such-and-such, and one?