Monseigneur Adriani, the Pope's Nuncio; then fol-
lowed alternately Baron Hûchenard of the Inscrip-
tions et Belles-Lettres, Mourad Bey, the Turkish am-
bassador, the chemist Delpech of the Académie des
Sciences, the Belgian minister, the musician Landry
of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, Danjon, the dra-
matic author, one of Picheral's harlequins, and lastly
Prince d'Athis, who by his double title of Minister
Plenipotentiary and Member of the Académie des
Sciences Morales et Politiques, formed a connecting
link between the two sets of guests.

At the end of the table sat His Highness' aide-de-
camp, the young member of the papal guard, Comte
Adriani, nephew of the Nuncio, and the indispensable
Lavaux, who was present at every entertainment.

The women lacked charm. Comtesse de Foder, red-
haired, vivacious, very small, and muffled in laces
almost to the tip of her pointed nose, looked like a
squirrel with a bad cold. Baronne Huchenard, mous-
tached and of uncertain age, resembled a fat old man
in a low-necked dress. Mme. Astier in a velvet robe
cut heart-shaped, a gift from the duchesse, sacrificed
to her dear Antonia the pleasure of displaying her
arms and shoulders, the last relics of her beauty; and
thanks to this consideration, Duchesse Padovoni
seemed the only attractive woman at the table. She
was tall and fair, wore a costume of What's His
Name's, and had a small face, whose beautiful, brilliant
eyes, haughty yet changeful, were alternately kind,
loving, and wrathful under the heavy black brows that
nearly met, a short nose, a full, passionate mouth, and
a complexion whose youthful bloom, the skin of a
woman of thirty, was due to the habit of spending
her afternoon in bed when she intended to receive or
go to an entertainment in the evening. Having lived
away from France a long time, ambassadress at
Vienna, St. Petersburg, Constantinople, where she was
the acknowledged authority in the etiquette of French
society, she retained a shade of assumption, which
Parisian dames resented, for she talked patronizingly
to them as if they were foreigners and explained what
they knew as well as herself. The duchesse in her
drawing-room in the Rue de Poitiers still continued

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