There were an English Foreign Secretary and a leader of the
Opposition hobnobbing together. There was an author who wrote under two
names, and had come to study Monte Carlo in order to write two
epoch-making novels, one in favour of the Casino, one against, and was
taking notes of everybody he met, for both books. There was an Austrian
princess who had more beautiful jewels than any woman at Monte Carlo,
except a celebrated dancer who was taking a rest cure at the Hotel de
Paris; and there was the princess' half-sister who had married a poor
artist and lived in his house in the mountains, doing her own cooking.
Also there were all Rose's queer black sheep who yielded meekly to her
ribbon-wreathed crook, though they "butted" against George's methods.
Some of these were seriously shorn sheep, yet Rose would not for worlds
have hurt their feelings by forgetting to invite them.
It was a marvellously incongruous assemblage, as most large and
far-reaching entertainments at Monte Carlo must be; and odd things
happened in corners behind tea-tables, such as young gamblers producing
large wads of notes freshly won in the Rooms and flourishing them under
the eyes of ladies who tabooed the name of the Casino. But there was no
gossip, no scandal: for somehow in "St. George" Winter's house one felt
warmly disposed even to one's enemies; and no unkind words were spoken
by any one except General Caradine. He, who had a habit of mumbling his
secret thoughts aloud unconsciously, was heard to mutter: "Same old
crew: same dull lot, year after year, world without end.
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