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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. The Baroness gave a little sigh of content as she leaned back in her chair. She smoked as one to the manner born.

"One must live somewhere, it is true," she agreed, "but why London? I think that of all great cities it is the most provincial. It lacks what you call the atmosphere. The people are all so polite, and so deadly, deadly dull. How different in Paris or Berlin, even Brussels!"

"Circumstances are a little against us, aren't they?" Louise remarked. "Our opportunities for making acquaintances are limited."

The Baroness made a little grimace.