She was a spitfire and she couldn't dance. But she had given the Parisians a genuine thrill. She was a success. Two slippers and two garters, hurled with feminine rage and feminine inaccuracy into the faces of a line of bored theatergoers, had achieved more for the fair artillerist than the most exquisite dancing could have hoped to. Lola was the talk of the hour. An army of babbling Ranelaghs could not now have dimmed her fame. Dujarrier, all-powerful editor of "La Presse," laid his somewhat shopworn heart at her feet. Dumas, Balzac, and many another celebrity sued for her favor. Her reign over the hearts of men had recommenced. But Lola Montez never rode long on prosperity's wave-crest. A French adorer, jealous of Dujarrier's prestige with the lovely dancer, challenged the great editor to a duel. Dujarrier, for love of Lola, accepted the challenge--and was borne off the field of honor with a bullet through his brain. Lola sought to improve the occasion by swathing herself somberly and right becomingly in crape, and by vowing a vendetta against the slayer. But before she could profit by the excellent advertisement, Dumas chanced to say something to a friend--who repeated it to another friend, who repeated it to all Paris--that set the superstitious, mid-century Frenchmen to looking askance at Lola and to avoiding her gaze. Said Monte Cristo's creator: "She has the evil eye. She will bring a curse upon any man who loves her." And by that (perhaps) senseless speech, Dumas drove Lola Montez from Paris. But she took with her all her new-born prestige as a danseuse. She took it first to Berlin. There she was bidden to dance at a court reception tendered by King Frederick William, of Prussia. The rooms of the palace, on the night of the reception, were stiflingly hot. Lola asked for a glass of water. A much-belaced and bechained chamberlain--to whom the request was repeated by a footman--sent word to Lola that she was there to dance for the king and not to order her fellow-servants around. The net result of this answer was another Irish rage. Lola, regardless of her pompous surroundings, rushed up to the offending chamberlain and loudly made known her exact opinion of him. She added that she was tired of dealing with understrappers, and that, unless the king himself would bring her a glass of water, there would be no dreamy Spanish dance at the palace that night. The scandalized officials moved forward in a body to hustle the lesemajeste perpetrator out of the sacred precincts. But the rumpus had reached the ears of King Frederick William himself, at the far end of the big room. His majesty came forward in person to learn the cause of the disturbance. He saw a marvelously beautiful woman in a marvelously abusive rage.