The Monceau plain is the quarter of changed fortunes and dice-throwing. An entire town given over to luxury, born in a single night, suddenly sprung into existence. The unpremeditated offspring of the aggregation of millions. Instead of the cobbler's stall, the red-bedaubed shop of the dealer in wines, the nakedness of an outer boulevard, here in this spot of earth all styles flourish: the contrast of fancy, the chateau throwing the English cottage in the shade; the Louis XIII. dwelling hobnobbing with the Flemish house; the salamander of Francis I. hugging the bourgeois tenement; the Gothic gateway opening for the entry of the carriages of the courtesan. A town within a town. Something novel, white, extravagant, overdone: the colossal in proximity to the attractive, the vastness of a grand American hotel casting its shadow over an Italian loggia. It partook at once of the Parisian and the Yankee. The Chateau de Chambord sheltering a chocolate maker, and the studio of an artist now become the salon of a rich curbstone broker. The little Hotel de Vanda,--_one of our charming fugitives_, as those of the chroniclers who still remember Vanda, say of her in their articles sometimes--is an elegant establishment, severe in external appearance, but of entirely modern interior arrangements, with a wealth of choice knickknacks, and is regarded as one of the most attractive houses in Rue Prony. Since the flight of the pretty courtesan, it bears the sad notice: _Residence to let_. Its fast closed shutters give it the gloomy appearance of a deserted boudoir. Complete silence succeeds feverish bustle! Vanda was a boisterous, madcap spendthrift. Through the old windows with their old-fashioned panes there often used to escape snatches of song, airs of waltzes, fragments of quadrilles. Vanda's horses pawed the ground spiritedly as they started at the fashionable hour for the Bois, through the great gateway leading to the stables. And now, for months, a corner of Rue Prony had been silent and drowsy, and weighted with the melancholy that surrounds forsaken objects. It was here that Marianne, in carrying out her determination, entered with a high head, resolved to cast off her sombre misery or to sink, her plans defeated. The Dujarrier had greatly assisted her in taking up her abode, building her hopes on Mademoiselle Kayser's beauty as on some temporary profitable investment. As the old woman looked at her, she shook her head. Marianne had to be quick. She was pale, already weary, and her beauty, heightened by this weariness, was "in full blast," as the former bungling artiste said in her capacity of a connoisseur. "After all," Dujarrier said to herself, "it is the favorable moment for success. One does not become a _general_ except through seniority."