Clever men, distinguished men, and even men of exalted station
formed a perpetual and brilliant court round the fascinating young
actress of the Comedie Francaise, and she glided through republican,
revolutionary, bloodthirsty Paris like a shining comet with a trail
behind her of all that was most distinguished, most interesting, in
intellectual Europe.
Then the climax came. Some smiled indulgently and called it
an artistic eccentricity, others looked upon it as a wise provision,
in view of the many events which were crowding thick and fast in Paris
just then, but to all, the real motive of that climax remained a
puzzle and a mystery. Anyway, Marguerite St. Just married Sir Percy
Blakeney one fine day, just like that, without any warning to her
friends, without a SOIREE DE CONTRAT or DINER DE FIANCAILLES or
other appurtenances of a fashionable French wedding.
How that stupid, dull Englishman ever came to be admitted
within the intellectual circle which revolved round "the cleverest
woman in Europe," as her friends unanimously called her, no one
ventured to guess--golden key is said to open every door, asserted the
more malignantly inclined.
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