Mme. Lorraine was a retired actress--ballet-dancer, some said. She was a French woman, airy and charming, like the majority of her race. The Jockey Club petted her, although they freely owned that she was a trifle fast, and did not have the _entrée_ of some of the best houses in the city. However, there were some nice, fashionable people not so strait-laced who sent her cards to their fêtes, and now and then accepted return invitations, so that it could not be said that she was outside the pale of society. Mme. Lorraine took a fancy to the good-looking Yankee, as she dubbed him, and gave him _carte blanche_ to call at her _bijou_ house in Esplanade Street. He accepted with outward eagerness and inward indifference. He was too familiar with women of her type at the North--fast, frivolous, and avaricious--to be flattered by her notice or her invitation. "She may do for the rich Jockey Club, but her acquaintance is too expensive a luxury for a poor devil of a newspaper correspondent," he told the Club. "She has card-parties, of course, and I am too poor to gamble." Pierre Carmontelle laughed, and told him to call in the afternoon, when there was no gambling in the _recherché_ saloon. "To see madame at home, informally, with her little savage, would be rich, _mon ami_. You would get a spicy paragraph for your newspaper," he said. "Her little savage?" "Do not ask me any questions, for I shall not answer," said Carmontelle, still laughing. "Perhaps Remond there will gratify your curiosity. The little vixen flung her tiny slipper into his face once when he tried to kiss her, under the influence of a _soupçon_ too much of madame's foamy champagne." "Madame's daughter, perhaps?" said Van Zandt, looking at Remond; but the latter only scowled and muttered, under his breath: "The little demon!" He thought they were guying him, and decided not to call in Esplanade Street. But it was only one week later that he saw Mme. Lorraine again at Metairie. Her carriage was surrounded by admirers, and she was betting furiously on the racing, but she found time to see the Yankee and beckon him importunately with her dainty, tan-kidded hand. They made way for him to come to her where she sat among her silken cushions, resplendent in old-gold satin, black lace, and Maréchal Niel roses, her beautiful, brilliant face wreathed in smiles, her toilet so perfectly appointed that she looked barely twenty-five, although the Club admitted that she must be past forty. "It is fifteen years since Lorraine married her off the stage, and she had been starring it ten years before he ever saw her," said Carmontelle, confidentially. The big, almond-shaped dark eyes flashed reproachfully, as she said, with her prettiest _moue_: "You naughty Yankee, you have not called!" "I have been too busy," he fibbed; "but I am coming this evening." "_Quel plaisir_!" she exclaimed, and then the racing distracted their attention again.