'"
Poor Villiers was not much to blame; it was part of Ninon's
temperament to waste her money, and the canvases round the room
testified that she spent a great deal on modern art. She certainly had
been a rich woman; rumour credited her with spending fifty thousand
francs a year, and in her case rumour said no more than the truth, for
it would require that at least to live as she lived, keeping open
house to all the literature, music, painting, and sculpture done in
Montmartre. At first sight her hospitality seems unreasonable, but
when one thinks one sees that it conforms to the rules of all
hospitality. There must be a principle of selection, and were the
_rates_ she entertained less amusing than the people one meets in
Grosvenor Square or the Champs Elysees? Any friend could introduce
another, that is common practice, but at Ninon's there was a
restriction which I never met elsewhere--no friend could bring another
unless the newcomer was a _rate_--in other words, unless he had
written music or verse, or painted or carved, in a way that did not
appeal to the taste of the ordinary public; inability to reach the
taste of the general public was the criterion that obtained there.
The windows of Ninon's boudoir opened upon the garden, and on my
expressing surprise at its size and at the large trees that grew
there, she gave me permission to admire and investigate; and I walked
about the pond, interested in the numerous ducks, in the cats, in the
companies of macaws and cockatoos that climbed down from their perches
and strutted across the swards.
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