CHAPTER VIII.
THE BARONESS INTERVENES The Baroness trifled with some grapes and looked languidly round the room.
"My dear Louise," she declared, "it is the truth what every one tells me of your country.

You are a dull people.

I weary myself here." The girl whom she had addressed as Louise shrugged her shoulders.
"So do I, so do all of us," she answered, a little wearily.

"What would you have?
One must live somewhere." The Baroness sighed, and from a chatelaine hung with elegant trifles selected a gold cigarette case.

An attentive waiter rushed for a match and presented it.