Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/135

 opportunity to achieve the kind of fame she had learned to crave, she grasped it. She began to work and study, taking as her model a notorious French singer whose exquisite art in the singing of unspeakable songs had won unwilling recognition from the people of two continents. The Convent Girl vanquished this singer on her own ground, for the latter had become an old story and the new-comer was young and beautiful. To the blasé French there was a fascination in the contrast between the pure lips and the words that came from them, the gold cross always worn by her, and the eyes above it.

"Who is this 'Convent Girl' they re talking about?" an English woman of rank asked her husband. She did not visit the cafés chantants of Paris, nor did she read publications which would have told her what she asked. Her husband was very well informed on the subject.

"She is a woman who has the wickedest eyes in all Europe," he said, curtly.

The Convent Girl continued her swift swirling in the Paris whirlpool. Men ruined themselves for her, and women studied the fashions of her gowns. Among her kind she was regarded as a good sort. She gave freely, with the off-hand generosity that involves no self-sacrifice. She posed for one or two promising