Our own Set by Ossip Schubin — Read

Princess Vulpini, who had not escaped the fashionable complaint -- the _Morbus Schliemaniensis_, had found a treasure no further off than in an old-clothes shop in the Via Aracoeli, where she had bought two wonderful shields from designs, she was assured, of Benvenuto Cellini's and a fragment of tapestry said to have been designed by Raphael, and she had invited a few intimate friends -- Truyn, Sempaly, von Klinger, and Count Siegburg, an Austrian attache, to give their opinion as to the genuineness of her find. She was Truyn's sister and a few years younger than he; she had met Prince Vulpini at Vichy when spending a season there with her invalid father and soon afterwards had married him, and now for twelve years she had lived in Rome, loving it well, though she never ceased railing at it for sundry inconveniences, was always singing the praises of Vienna and would have all her shopping done for her "at home" because she was convinced that nothing was to be had in Rome but photographs, antiques and wax-matches.

The company had just finished a lively dinner, throughout which they had unanimously abused the new Italian Ministry; but with the arrival of the coffee and cigarettes they turned to the consideration of the princess's antiquities which she had spread out on the floor for inspection. The gentlemen threw themselves on all-fours to examine the arras and the shields, and pronounced their verdict with conscientious frankness. No one, it seemed, was thoroughly convinced of the authenticity of the treasures but the Countess Marie Schalingen, a lady who had been for some few weeks in Rome as the princess's guest; all the others had doubts. The most vigorous sceptic of them all was Count Siegburg, who, to be sure, was the one who knew least of such matters, but who nevertheless spoke of "electrotype casts and modern imitations" with supreme decisiveness.