eed here, and enable us to move among the guests of the house-party
though we have little to do save with two of them--the most striking
female personality in the house, Judith Montmarte, and the latest society
lion, Colonel Youlter, the Thibet explorer.

Judith Montmarte, as her name suggests, was a Jewess. She was tall--it
is curious that the nineteen centuries of Semitic persecution should have
left the Jewess taller, in proportion, than the Jew--Judith Montmarte was
tall, with a full figure. The contour of her face suggested Spanish
blood. Her hair--what a wealth of it there was--was blue-black, finer
than such hair usually is, and with a sheen on it like unto a raven's
wing. Her eyes were large, black, and melting in their fullness. Her
lips were full, and rich in their crimson.

The face was extraordinarily beautiful, in a general way. But though the
lips and eyes would be accounted lovely, yet a true student of faces
would have read cruelty in the ruby lips, and a shade of hell lurking in
the melting black eyes. A millionairess, several times over, (if report
could be trusted) she was known and felt to be a powerful personage.
There was not a continental or oriental court where she was not
well-known--and feared, because of her power. A much-travelled woman, a
wide reader--especially in the matter of the occult; a superb musician; a
Patti and a Lind rolled into one, made her the most wonderful songster of
the day.

In character--chameleon is the only word that can in anyway describe her.
As regarded her appearances in society, her acceptance of invitations,
etc., she was usually regarded as capricious, to a fault. But this was
as it _appeared_ to those with whom she had to do. She had been known to
refuse a banquet at the table of a prince, yet eat a dish of macaroni
with a peasant, or boiled chestnuts with a forest charcoal burner. What
the world did not know, did not realize, was that, in these things, she
was not capricious, but simply serving some deep purpose of her life.

She had accepted the Duerdon invitation because she specially desired to
meet Colonel Youlter.

To-night, the pair had met for the first time, just five minutes before
the gong had sounded for dinner. Colonel Youlter had taken her down to
the dining-room.

Just at first she had spoken but little, and the Colonel had thought her
fatigued, for he had caught one glimpse of the dreamy languor in her
great liquid eyes.

An a