Unfortunately she sought with her eyes open, having never
grasped the elementary truth that to find a friend one must close one
eye: to keep him--two. She always attributed to men qualities which, she
afterwards discovered, they did not possess. Her life since the
marrying period had been a breathless succession of love affairs, each
more eternal than the last.
In matters such as these, Madame Steynlin was the reverse of the
Duchess. True to her ideal of La Pompadour, that lady did not mind how
many men danced attendance on her--the more the merrier. Nor did she
bother about their ages; for all she cared, they might be, and often
were, the veriest crocks. She was rather particular, however, about
stiff collars and things; the appearance and conversation of her
retinue, she avowed, should be of the kind to pass muster in good
society. Madame Steynlin liked to have not more than one man escorting
her at a time, and he should be young, healthy-looking, and full of
life. In regard to minor matters she preferred, if anything, Byronic
collars to starched ones; troubling little, for the rest, what costume
her cavalier was wearing or what opinions he expressed.
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