her hair a blue argus butterfly
completed the chord of colour. There was the faintest tinge of pink
in her cheek applied with delicate art. Her dress seemed made of
unsubstantial dream stuff--I believe they call it chiffon--and it
covered her bosom and arms like the spray of a fairy sea. She had the
air of an impalpable Undine, a creation of sea-foam and sea-flower; an
exquisite suggestion of the ethereal which floated beauty, as it were,
into her face. I know little of women, save what these past few grievous
months have taught me; but I know that hours of anxious thought and
desperate hope lay behind this effect of fragile loveliness. The wit of
woman could not have rendered a woman's body a greater contrast to that
of her rival; and with infinite subtlety she had imbued the contrast
with the deeper significance of rare and spiritual things. I know this
was so. I know it was a challenge, a defiance, an ordeal by combat; and
the knowledge hurt me, so that I felt like a Dathan or Abiram who
had laid hand on the Ark of the Covenant (for the soul of a woman, by
heaven! is a holy thing), and I wished that the earth could open and
swallow me up.

We sat down to table in the middle of the great room--a quiet corner
on the balcony away from the band is not to Carlotta's taste--like any
conventional party of four, and at first talked of indifferent matters.
Conciergerie dinner-parties in the Terror always began with a discussion
of the latest cure for megrims, or the most fashionable cut of a panier.
Presently Pasquale who had been talking travel with Judith appealed to
me.

"What year was it, Ordeyne, that I came home from Abyssinia?"

"I forget," said I. "I only remember you presenting me with that hideous
thing hanging in my passage, which you called a dulcimer."

_"Gage d'amour?"_ smiled Judith.

Pasquale laughed and twirled his swaggering moustache.

"I did get it from a damsel, and that is why I called it a dulcimer, but
she didn't sing of Mount Abora. I wish I could remember the year."

"I think it was in 1894," said Judith quietly.

Pasquale, who had been completely unaware of Judith's existence until
half an hour before, could not repress a stare of polite surprise.

"I believe you are right. In fact, you are. But how can you tell?"

"Through the kindness of Sir Marcus," replied Judith graciously, "you
are a very old acquaintance. I could write you off-hand a nice
little obituary notice with all the adventu