The Baroness
“You might see some interesting pieces there,” my friend Boisrené said. “Come with me.” He took me to the first floor of a beautiful house in one of the best streets in Paris. We were received by a very agreeable man, with perfect manners, who led us from room to room, and showed us rare pieces, negligently letting fall the price. Vast sums, ten, twenty, thirty, fifty thousand francs, fell from his lips with so much grace and ease that no one could doubt that millions were locked up in the safe belonging to this man-of-the-world dealer.
I had long known him by repute. Very clever, very subtle-witted, very intelligent, he acted as intermediary in all sorts of transactions. He was in touch with all the richest amateurs in Paris, and even in Europe and America; he knew their tastes and their latest crazes, and he wrote or wired the news to such as lived in distant towns, as soon as ever any piece came into the market which was likely to interest them.
Members of the best families, who found themselves in a temporary embarrassment, had recourse to him, it might be to find money for gambling, it might be to pay a debt, or to sell a picture, an heirloom, a tapestry, or even a house or an estate, in moments of particular stress.
It was said that he never refused his services when he saw a chance of profit.
Boisrené seemed to be on intimate terms with this curious dealer. They had worked together more than once. I looked at the man with sharp interest.
He was tall, thin, bald and vastly elegant. His gentle insinuating voice had a charm of its own, a seductive charm that gave things a special value. When he held a piece in his fingers, he turned it over and over, looking at it so intelligently and subtly, so elegantly and sympathetically that the thing seemed to take on an immediate added beauty, a transformation wrought by his touch and his glance. It became at once much more valuable in the eyes of the beholder just through having passed from the showcase into his grasp.
“And your Christ?” said Boisrené; “the beautiful Renaissance Christ that you showed me last year?”
The man smiled and answered:
“I sold it, and in a very odd way. It’s a real fragment of Parisian life. Would you like to hear it?”
“I should.”
“You know Baroness Samoris?”
“Yes and no. I have seen her once, but I know what she is.”
“You do really know about her?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what you know, so that I can be sure you’re not making a mistake.”
“Certainly. Mme. Samoris is a woman of the world who has a daughter, though no one knows anything about a husband. In any event, if she has not had a husband, she manages her lovers with great discretion, for she is received in a certain section of society, which is either tolerant or blind.
“She goes regularly to church, receives the sacraments with a devout ostentation and never compromised herself in the eyes of the world. She hopes that her daughter will marry well. Have I got her right?”
“Yes, but I’ll add to the stock of your knowledge: she is a kept woman whose lovers have a greater respect for her than if she did not sleep with them. It is a rare quality; and the woman who achieves it can get what she wants from any man. The man whom, all unknown to himself, she has already decided to take, seeks her favour for a long time, desires her and trembles for his audacity, entreats her and is ashamed of entreaty, is amazed when she surrenders, and possesses her with respectful gratitude. He never notices that he is paying her, to such a fine art has she brought the act of taking; she keeps the tone of their relationship so reserved, so dignified, so correct that when he leaves her bed he would assault any man daring to doubt his mistress’s virtue. And that in all good faith.
“I have been of service to this woman on several occasions. And she has no secrets from me.
“Well, early in January, she came to me to borrow thirty thousand francs. I did not lend them to her, of course, but as I wanted to oblige her I begged her to tell me exactly how she was placed so that I might know what I could do for her.
“She described the situation in language so extraordinarily discreet that she could not have phrased it more delicately if she had been talking about her little girl’s first communion. I gathered at last that times were hard and she was penniless.
“Thanks to the crisis in trade, political troubles that the existing government appeared to keep going at will, rumours of war, and the general unrest, money moved reluctantly even through lovers’ hands. And, besides,
