The Bondwoman

g three great windows let in softened rays on the paneled walls, on the fluted columns of white and gold, and on the famous frescoes of the First Empire. She had no feeling for petite apartments such as appeal to many women; there must, for her, be height and space and long vistas.

"I like perspective to every picture," she said. "I enjoy the groupings of my friends in my own rooms more than elsewhere. From my couch I have the best point of view, and the raised dais flatters me with its suggestion of a throne of state."

She looked so tiny for a chair of state; and with her usual quaint humor she recognized the fact.

"But my temperament brings me an affinity with things that are great for all that," she would affirm. "One does not need to be a physical Colossus in order to see the stars."

The morning after her first reception she was smiling rather sardonically at a picture at the far end of the great salon--that of a very handsome young woman who laughed frankly at the man who lean