There were wreaths--abundance of wreaths. Noticeable among them was an enormous floral tribute from the owner of the FLUTTERBY. It attracted the most favourable comment. People said that nobody but a multi-multi-multi-millionaire could afford to forgive an affront like that affair of the CREPE DE CHINE. As a matter of fact, old Koppen would have been the last person on earth to forgive an injury of this particular kind. He was a good American; he never permitted loose talk about women, least of all if they were in any way connected with himself; he would get purple in the face, he would ramp and rage and hop about like a veritable Sioux, in the face of any suggestion of improprieties on board his yacht. No, Cornelius van Koppen had acted in all innocence, from natural kindliness of heart. The legend had never reached his hears, nobody (for a wonder) having dared to mention it to him. Another wreath, from Count Caloveglia--an uncommonly pretty one, with a simple but heartfelt inscription--created legitimate surprise. Those white camellias, people reckoned, could not have cost less than twenty francs, and everybody knew that the dear old boy was as poor as a church mouse and that, moreover, he had enjoyed nothing but a bowing acquaintance with the deceased lady. He had indeed only spoken to her once in his life. But her face--her face had left an indelible impression on his sensitive and artistic mind. There was something Greek about Count Caloveglia. His pedigree, uncontaminated by Moor or Spaniard, went back to hoariest antiquity. Many people said he was a reincarnation of old Hellas. Elbowing his way through crowded cities or chatting with sunburnt peasant-lads among the vineyards, he received thrills of pleasurable inspiration--thrills to which grosser natures are inaccessible. He loved to watch the bodily movements of his fellow-creatures and all the eloquent gestures of Southern life--the lingering smile, the sullen stare of anger, the firm or flaccid step. Within this world of humdrum happenings he created a world of his own, a sculptor's paradise. Colour said little to him. He was enamoured of form, the lively passion of the flesh, the tremulous play of nerve and muscle. A connoisseur of pose and expression, he looked at mankind from the plastic point of view, peering through accidentals into what was spiritual, pre-ordained, inevitable; striving to interpret--to waylay and hold fast--that divinity, fair or foul, which resides within one and all of us. How would this one look, divested of ephemeral appurtenances and standing there, in bronze or marble; what were the essential qualities of those features--their aesthetic mission to men like himself; to what type or relic of the classic age might they be assimilated? He was for ever disentangling the eternal from mundane accessories. And there was an element of the eternal, he used to declare, in every creature of earth.