The princess’s secretary, who was likewise her courier, major-domo, shawl-bearer,—in a word, factotum,—bore the name of Monsieur Ferry, and was a Frenchman. He was the picture of devotion. Since one cannot all the time be bending the upper part of the body forward as in reverential salutations, he stood with his hip sloping to one side when he spoke to his mistress, and always addressed her as “Altesse.” He was a man of about forty, with a reddish imperial and side whiskers. The old valet, called Monsieur David, a fat, smooth-shaven Swiss, had been one of the household for twenty years, had served the late prince in Mingrelia, and was the genuine type of the devoted old servant, possessing the absolute confidence of his mistress and the love of her children. Innumerable and clear-cut are the recollections which the hours that I spent in the Dedopali’s house and in her company have left in my mind. The oriental, exotic quality, commingled with the Russian and Parisian tone of high society, spiced with romance and surrounded with the glitter of wealth, exercised a peculiar fascination upon me; I was truly downright happy in this relationship, it was to me like the coming true of indefinite, long-cherished dreams. When I entered her apartments in the Weckerlin house at any hour I had a glad and buoyant feeling. From the front room one entered a large dining-room with three windows and a balcony; at its right there was a corner drawing-room in which the princess spent most of her time, and back of that was her sleeping-room. At the left of the dining-room were the children’s rooms. It was only an ordinary _appartement meublé_, though a high-grade one; nothing of princely splendor about it; but yet by the many personal objects scattered about, by the flowers, by the fashion in which the furniture was placed, the whole had a private and characteristic stamp of its own; the very odor that filled these rooms—a mixture of orange-flower perfume, Russian cigarettes, and leather—had something personal about it. In the course of years I met the Dedopali in many places, and everywhere that she stayed this same odor hovered about her rooms and adhered to all her possessions. I spent many hours in that corner drawing-room and listened to the words of the princess, who related to me much that was romantic in her career. She would stay in Europe a few years more, and then return to her own country with her sons. In the meantime her daughter would doubtless have married. “And you, too, Contessina, will sometime visit me in the Caucasus with your husband, will you not? You are already twenty-one, and so pretty—you must soon make a brilliant match and be right happy.—Come, I will show you what wedding present I intend for you.”