"Well, she might be quite a success; we must think about her. Come; we've had enough of this." Mrs. Bates turned a careless back upon all her Louis Quinze spendor. "The next thing will be something else." V Jane's guide passed swiftly into another large and imposing apartment. "This I call the Sala de los Embajadores; here is where I receive my distinguished guests." "Good!" cried Jane, who knew Irving's _Alhambra_ by heart. "Only it isn't Moorish; it's Baroque--and a very good example." The room had a heavy panelled ceiling of dark wood, with a cartouche in each panel; stacks of seventeenth-century armor stood in the corners, half a dozen large Aubusson tapestries hung on the walls, and a vast fireplace, flanked by huge Atlantes and crowned by a heavy pediment broken and curled, almost filled one whole side. "That fireplace is Baroque all over." "See here," said Mrs. Bates, suddenly; "are you the woman who read about the Decadence of the Renaissance Forms at the last Fortnightly?" "I'm the woman," responded Jane, modestly. "I don't know why I didn't recognize you before. But you sat in an awfully bad light, for one thing. Besides, I had so much on my mind that day. Our dear little Reginald was coming down with something--or so we thought. And the bonnet I was forced to wear--well, it just made me blue. You didn't notice it?" "I was too flustered to notice anything. It was my first time there." "Well, it was a good paper, although I couldn't half pay attention to it; it gave me several new notions. All my decorations, then--you think them corrupt and degraded?" "Well," returned Jane, at once soothing and judicial, "all these later forms are interesting from an historical and sociological point of view. And lots of people find them beautiful, too, for that matter." Jane slid over these big words with a practised ease. "They impressed my notables, anyway," retorted Mrs. Bates. "We entertained a great deal during the Fair--it was expected, of course, from people of our position. We had princes and counts and honorables without end. I remember how delighted I was with my first prince--a Russian. H'm! later in the season Russian princes were as plentiful as blackberries: you stepped on one at every turn. We had some of the English, too. One of their young men visited us at Geneva during the summer. I never quite made out who invited him; I have half an idea that he invited himself. He was a great trial. Queer about the English, isn't it? How can people who are so clever and capable in practical things ever be such insolent tom-fools in social things? Do you know Arthur Paston?" "No. Was he one of them? "Not exactly. He lives here. We thought we had Americanized him; but now he has slipped back and is almost as bad as he was to start with. Arthur Scodd-Paston--that's the way his cards read to-day. Do you care for paintings?" "Of course. Is Arthur Scodd-Paston like one?"