zing at that presentment of a once
potent and long vanished beauty. . . . Extraordinarily like and yet so
extraordinarily unlike! But the resemblance may have well been exact
when Mary Zattiany was twenty. How had Mary Ogden looked at thirty?
That very lift of the strong chin, that long arch of nostril . . .
something began to beat in the back of his brain. . . .

"What a beauty poor Mary must have been, no?"

He turned, and forgot the portrait. Madame Zattiany wore a gown of
that subtle but unmistakable green that no light can turn blue; thin
shimmering velvet to the knees, melting into satin embroidered with
silver and veiled with tulle. On her head was a small diamond tiara
and her breast was a blaze of emeralds and diamonds. She carried a
large fan of green feathers.

He had believed he had measured the extent of her beauty, but the crown
gave her a new radiance--and she looked as attainable as a queen on her
throne.

He went forward and raised her hand to his lips. "I insist," he said
gallantly. "Anything else would be out of the picture. I need not
tell you how wonderful you look--nor that after tonight you will hardly
remain obscure!"

"Why do things halfway? It has never been my method. And Mary told me
once that Nile-green had been her favorite color until she lost her
complexion. So--as I am to exhibit myself in a box--_enfin!_ . . .
Besides, I wanted to go." She smiled charmingly. "It was most kind of
you to think of me."

"Would that all 'kind' acts were as graciously rewarded. I shall be
insufferably conceited for the rest of my life--only it is doubtful if
I shall be seen at all. Shall we go?"

When they arrived at Sherry's they found the large restaurant almost
deserted. It was barely seven. After he had ordered the dinner--and
he thanked his stars that he knew how to order a dinner--she said
casually:

"I had a call from your friend, Miss Dwight, today."

"Yes? You did not see her, I suppose?"

"Oh, but I did. We talked for two hours. It was almost comical--the
sheer delight in talking to a woman once more. I have never been what
is called a woman's woman, but I always had my friends, and I suddenly
realized that I had missed my own sex."

"I shouldn't fancy that you two would have much in common."

"You forget that we were both nurses. We compared experiences: methods
of nursing, operations, doctors, surgeons, shell shock, plastic
surgery, the various characteristi