New Britain herald., 1922-11-13
The Mottlcd Butterfly.

rhe opera had opened. The music began to m the corridors. But NJ. Jonqnelle did not go in.
 He remained idling in the foyer, a cigarette in his fingers his manner and air, a well-bred, bored indiffer- ence. The whole house was crowded. There was not a vacant seat.
 IL was the last performance in Paris of Mme. Zirtenzoffs Salome.
 \ few belated persons passed NJ. Jonquelle and entered the doors to the boxes Some of these persons addressed him all regarded him. He was well-known figure in Paris. His friendship was worth something. and whether one knew him, or cared 10 know him. all were curious about the man.
 The vast music assembled and ex- tended itself.
 The foyer became empty. and still M. Jonquelle did not go in. Perhaps it was because Mme. Zrtenoff had not zone on. She was q famous beauty; her Salome had the abandon which stimulated even the jaded nerves of France. It had been on at the Opera for fifty days, and Paris was still keen to zee it.
 The woman was a Russian exotic, one of those alluring creatures that always assemble a fabulous legend. There was wild passion in her Salome, and her conquests were the gossip of Paris.
 The opera had continued for per haps thirty minutes. Mime. Zirten- nr4D ha@ k silver bell, reached M. Jonquelle clearly where he sauntered in the foyer.
 Presently the door to box opened and one of the pages of the theater appeared with an immense bouquet of orchids. The flowers were worth thousand francs. They could have been grown n Paris only with extreme care and under every perfection of light and temperature It was a mass of flowers that would have drawn the attention of anybody, ex- qpisite orchids of the genus Oncidium Krameri, called the Mottled Butter ny.
 It seemed to have drawn the atten- ton of M. Jonquelle. He stopped the page as he passed him.
 "Garcon," he said, handing him a piece of gold. find me box of cigarettes before you go on with those flowers. Quickly-run; I will hold them until you return.
 The boy knew the great chief of the Service de la Surete.
 He gave M. Jonquelle the bouquet of orchids and disappeared down the stairway. He was gone hardly a moment; when he returned M Jon quelle had not moved from his posi- tion by pillar of the foyer. He handed back the orchids to the page and received the box of cigarettes.
 He paused moment, fingered the box but did not open it; instead, he walked a few steps down the foyer and entered the box from which the page had come out with the orchids.
 One looking on would have won dered why the Prefect of Police re- quired a pack of cigarettes, at the cost of ten- franc gold piece-espec- ially as, after having turned itin his hand, he had put it carelessly into his pocket and entered box. '
 It would appear that he waited for these cigarettes before entering the box. But to what end One could not smoke in a box at the Opera. at its most expensive point in the ultra fashionable audience of Paris. AL though the great opera house was packed with people--not a vacant seat visible to the eye-there was but one person in the box which M. Jon quelle had entered.
 He was person that anyone would | pause almost anywhere to observe. He was young; he was exquisitely dressed--a dress in which there was some of the over-extravagance of de- i tail, that suggestion of elegance, which the Parision cannot avoid.
 He was a young man and extremely l handsome, blond French type with l a dainty mustache and regular Italian | features, and thick, soft, yellow hair | In his physical aspect, for perfection of detail, the man had no equal on the Paris boulevards.
 It had got him rich American | wife and lifted him. as by fairy | lamp, out of the sordid environments i of an old family in decay. The thing i seemed piece of the design of a i Providence with an esthetic sense.
 This exquisite person would have | been incongruous except in an at | mosphere of wealth. He had an apartment now beyond the Arc de | Triomphe, one of those wonderful | apartments that the American in- | vasion after the Great War had set | up in Paris
 The Marquis was the envy of the bouevardier.
 But it was rumored that he had not the freedom of his wife's money sacks. He got what she allowed him, but it ought to be written here, in justice to the Marquis, that it was not he who complained. Why should he? Tho allowance was evidently enough