“Perhaps she gives you rooms,” the Princess suggested.

“How many do you think I have? She gives me everything, or has done so in the past. She brought me up; she’s the best little woman in the world.”

“You had better command a dress of her,” Madame Grandoni threw off.

“And your family, where are they?” the Princess continued.

“I have no family.”

“None at all?”

“None at all. I never had.”

“But the French blood you speak of and which I see perfectly in your face—you haven’t the English expression or want of expression—that must have come to you through some one.”

“Yes, through my mother.”

“And she’s dead?”