fascinations. Her bedroom seemed not
mean nor lonely to her, since the little square of glass, nailed above
the wash-stand, was ever there to reflect her face. Thereinto, indeed,
she was ever peering. She would droop her head from side to side, she
would bend it forward and see herself from beneath her eyelashes, then
tilt it back and watch herself over her supercilious chin. And she would
smile, frown, pout, languish--let all the emotions hover upon her face;
and always she seemed to herself lovelier than she had ever been.

Yet was there nothing Narcissine in her spirit. Her love for her own
image was not cold aestheticism. She valued that image not for its own
sake, but for sake of the glory it always won for her. In the little
remote music-hall, where she was soon appearing nightly as an "early
turn," she reaped glory in a nightly harvest. She could feel that all
the gallery-boys, because of her, were scornful of the sweethearts
wedged between them, and she knew that she had but to say "Will any
gentleman in the audience be so good as to lend me his hat?" for the
stalls to rise as one man and rush towards the platform. But greater
things were in store for her. She was engaged at two halls in the West
End. Her horizon was fast receding and expanding. Homage became nightly
tangible in bouquets, rings, brooches--things acceptable and (luckier
than their donors) accepted. Even Sunday was not barren for Zuleika:
modish hostesses gave her postprandially to their guests. Came that
Sunday night, notanda candidissimo calculo! when she received certain
guttural compliments which made absolute her vogue and enabled her to
command, thenceforth, whatever terms she asked for.

Already, indeed, she was rich. She was living at the most exorbitant
hotel in all Mayfair. She had innumerable gowns and no necessity to buy
jewels; and she also had, which pleased her most, the fine cheval-glass
I have described. At the close of the Season, Paris claimed her for
a month's engagement. Paris saw her and was prostrate. Boldini did a
portrait of her. Jules Bloch wrote a song about her; and this, for a
whole month, was howled up and down the cobbled alleys of Montmartre.
And all the little dandies were mad for "la Zuleika." The jewellers
of the Rue de la Paix soon had nothing left to put in their
windows--everything had been bought for "la Zuleika." For a whole month,
baccarat was not played at the Jockey Club--every member had succumbed
to a