wouldn’t bother with it any more, and nobody but rats would live in the Paris house unless it was repaired—­and poor papa was killed in a horrid little Saturday-to-Monday war of no importance (except to people whose hearts it broke)—­oh!  I believe the cousins were glad!  They thought it was a judgment.  That happened years ago, when I was only fifteen, and though they’ve plenty of money (more than most people in the American colony) they didn’t offer to help; and mamma would have died sooner than ask.  I had to be snatched out of school, to find that all the beautiful dreams of being a happy debutante must go by contraries.  We lived in the tumble-down house ourselves, mamma and I, and her friends rallied round her—­she was so popular and pretty.  They got her chances to give singing lessons, and me to do translating, and painting menus.  We were happy again, after a while, in spite of all, and people were so good to us!  Mamma used to hold a kind of salon, with all the brightest and best crowding to it, though they got nothing but sweet biscuits, vin ordinaire, and conversation—­and besides, the house might have taken a fancy to fall down on their heads any minute.  It was sporting of them to come at all!”

“And the cousins.  Did they come?”

“Not they!  They’re of the society of the little Brothers and Sisters of the Rich.  Their set was quite different from ours.  But when mamma died nearly two years ago, and I was alone, they did call, and Cousin Emily offered me a home.  I was to give up all my work, of course, which she considered degrading, and was simply to make myself useful to her as a daughter of the house might do.  That was what she said.”

“You accepted?”

“Yes.  I didn’t know her and her husband as well as I do now; and before she died mamma begged me to go to them, if they asked me.  That was when Monsieur Charretier came on the scene—­at least, he came a few months later, and I’ve had no peace since.  Lately, things were growing more and more impossible, when my best friend, Comtesse de Nesle, came to my rescue and found (or thought she’d found) me this engagement with the Princess.  As I told you, I simply ran away—­sneaked away—­and came here without any one but Pamela knowing.  And now she—­the Comtesse—­is just sailing for New York with her husband.”

“The Comtesse de Nesle—­that pretty little American!  I’ve met her in Paris—­and at the Dublin Horse Show,” exclaimed Lady Kilmarny.  “Well, I wish I could take up the rescue work where she has laid it down.  I think you are a most romantic little figure, and I’d love to engage you as my companion, only my husband and I are as poor as church mice.  Like your father, we’ve nothing but our name and a few ruins.  When I come South for my health I can’t afford such luxuries as a husband and a maid.  I have to choose between them and a private sitting-room.  So you see, I can’t possibly indulge in a companion.”