--This woman plays a part against
mine; and tell the lady--for she is a real, great lady, my girl, nay,
more, she is what you will never be, a woman whose prayers can rescue
souls from your purgatory--tell her I was in bed, as I was playing
last night, and that I am just getting up."
The Baroness, shown into Josepha's handsome drawing-room, did not note
how long she was kept waiting there, though it was a long half hour.
This room, entirely redecorated even since Josepha had had the house,
was hung with silk in purple and gold color. The luxury which fine
gentlemen were wont to lavish on their _petites maisons_, the scenes
of their profligacy, of which the remains still bear witness to the
follies from which they were so aptly named, was displayed to
perfection, thanks to modern inventiveness, in the four rooms opening
into each other, where the warm temperature was maintained by a system
of hot-air pipes with invisible openings.
The Baroness, quite bewildered, examined each work of art with the
greatest amazement. Here she found fortunes accounted for that melt in
the crucible under which pleasure and vanity feed the devouring
flames. This woman, who for twenty-six years had lived among the dead
relics of imperial magnificence, whose eyes were accustomed to carpets
patterned with faded flowers, rubbed gilding, silks as forlorn as her
heart, half understood the powerful fascinations of vice as she
studied its results.
Pages:
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555