We would not have it tarnish; let us turn
Oft and look back upon the wondrous web,
And when it shineth sometimes we shall know
That memory is possession. Jean Ingelow.
The Baroness Von Bruyin and her suite reached Paris about the middle of June.
They went first to the Splendide Hotel, Place de l’Opéra, at which Monsieur Le Grange had secured, by telegraph, a handsome suite of apartments.
But they remained there only for a few days, until a suitable house was procured on the Champs Elysées to which they immediately removed.
Madame Von Bruyin was supposed, on account of her recent widowhood, not to go into the gay world; yet, somehow or other, as soon as she was settled in her magnificent “hotel,” she managed to see much of society, or what was left of society in the French capital; for at this season the gay birds of passage in the fashionable world were already pluming their wings for flight to sea-side or mountain range for the summer. Yet enough still remained to make life gay in the gayest city of Christendom.
And though Madame Von Bruyin went to no balls or large public receptions, yet she saw a great deal of company both at home and abroad. And Lilith was always by her side, not as her salaried companion, but as her friend and equal.
The court had not left Paris, and it was through Madame Von Bruyin that Lilith obtained her first entrée into the “charmed” circle of Tuileries. And no less from her freshness, her piquancy and simplicity than from her rare beauty, la belle Virginienne became the fashion, just when the season was wearing to its close and wanted a new sensation.