How long ago it is! How long ago it is. It is thirty years since then!

I do not want you, my darling, to come for the opening of the hunting
season. Why spoil the pleasure of our friends by inflicting on them
fashionable toilettes after a day of vigorous exercise in the country?
This is the way, child, that men are spoiled. I embrace you.

Your old aunt,

GENEVIEVE DE L.




THE CAKE


Let us say that her name was Madame Anserre so as not to reveal her real
name.

She was one of those Parisian comets which leave, as it were, a trail of
fire behind them. She wrote verses and novels; she had a poetic heart,
and was rarely beautiful. She opened her doors to very few--only to
exceptional people, those who are commonly described as princes of
something or other. To be a visitor at her house constituted a claim, a
genuine claim to intellect: at least this was the estimate set on her
invitations. Her husband played the part of an obscure satellite. To be
the husband of a comet is not an easy thing. This husband had, however,
an original idea, that of creating a State within a State, of possessing