Oh, I know all of them a little, she replied quickly. Everybody knows all of them. Except, of course, the Cardinal. I love them all, too. They're only bad when they're together, she explained.
Mlle. de Morfontaine has asked me to spend the week-end at her villa in Tivoli. Will I see them there?
Oh, yes. We call that the hotbed.
Is it all right? Have you any advice to give me before I go?
No.
Yes, you have.
Well, she admitted, drawing her eyebrows together, I advise you to be ... to be stupid. It's hard. You must expect them to be very cordial at first. They have a way of getting very excited about people and then getting tired of them and dropping them. Except every now and then they find someone they like and they adopt him or her for good, and there's a new member of the Cabala. Rome's full of people who went through the rapids and didn't stick. Miss Grier's especially that way. She's just met you lately hasn't she?
Why, yes,—just this afternoon.
Well, she'll have you around every minute of the day for a while. She's coming over in a minute to ask you to stay to her midnight supper. She has famous midnight suppers.
But I can't. I was here to tea and immediately asked to dinner. It would be ridiculous to stay to midnight....