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Ermentrude's heart was in her throat, not because of the splendour, to
which she was accustomed; but it was to be her first meeting with a
noble dame, whose name was historic, at whose feet the poets of the
Second Empire had prostrated themselves, passionately plucking their
lyres; the friend of Liszt, Wagner, Berlioz, of Manet, Degas, Monet; the
new school--this wonderful old woman knew them all, from Goncourt and
Flaubert to Daudet and Maupassant. Had she not, Ermentrude remembered as
she divested herself of her cloak, sent a famous romancer out of the
house because he spoke slightingly of the Pope? Had she not cut the
emperor dead when she saw him with a lady not his empress? What a night
this would be in the American girl's orderly existence! And _he_ was to
be there, he had promised the princess.
Her heart was overflowing when she was graciously received by the great
lady who stood in the centre of a group at the back of the
drawing-room--a lofty apartment in white and gold, the panels painted by
Baudry, the furniture purest Empire.


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