* * * * * * *
"Now, you must tell us all about it," said Lady Considine, as soon
as they got into the drawing-room, "and how you ever managed to get
him out of this scrape."
"Oh, there isn't much to tell," said the Marchesa. "Narcisse was
condemned, indeed, but no one ever believed he would be executed.
One of my oldest friends is married to an official high up in the
Ministry of Justice, and I heard from her last week that Narcisse
would certainly be reprieved; but I never expected a free pardon.
Indeed, he got this entirely because it was discovered that
Mademoiselle Sidonie, his accomplice, was really a Miss Adah
Levine, who had graduated at a music-hall in East London, and that
she had announced her intention of retiring to the land of her
birth, and ascending to the apex of her profession on the strength
of her Parisian reputation. Then it was that the reaction in
favour of Narcisse set in; the boulevards could not stand this.
The journals dealt with this new outrage in their best Fashoda
style; the cafes rang with it: another insult cast upon unhappy
France, whose destiny was, it seemed, to weep tears of blood to the
end of time.
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