her, and her maids of honor, two charming little
Turks in rose robes, were draping her veil while old Miriam,
resplendent in green and silver, endeavored jealously to outmaneuver
them.

On her knees, the gnome-like Mrs. Hendricks was adding an orange
blossom to the laces on the train. Then she sat back on her heels,
her head a-tilt like a curious bird's, her eyes beaming
sentimentally upon the bride.

"The prettiest h'I h'ever did see," she pronounced with
satisfaction, "H'as pretty as a wax figger now--h'only a thought
_too_ waxy."

And like a wax figure indeed, immobile, rigid, the bride was
standing before them, arrayed at last in the shimmering white of the
sweeping satin, overrich of lace and orange flowers, and shrouded in
the clouding waves of her veil. White as her robes, pale as death
and as still, the girl looked out at them, and only that sick pallor
of her face and the glitter of her dark eyes betrayed the tumult
within.

"Your diadem, my dear--you are keeping us attending," came Madame de
Coulevain's voice from the door.

The diadem, that heavy circlet of brilliants which crowned the
Eastern bride in place of the orange wreath of Western convention,
must not be touched by the bride's fingers but placed by one of her
friends, married and married but once, and exceptionally happy in
that marriage.

Ghul-al-Din, Aimee's selection from her friends, stepped hastily
forward now, a soft, dimpled, slow-smiling girl, her eyes drowsy
with domesticity. No question of Ghul-al-Din's happiness! She
extolled her husband, a young captain of cavalry, and she adored her
infant son, a prodigy among children. Life for her was a rosy,
unquestioning absorption.

A shaft of irony sped through Aimee, as she bent her head for its
crowning at this young wife's hands, and received the ceremonial
wishes for her crowning of happiness, a crowning occurring but once
in her lifetime. Irony was the only salvation for the hour; without
that outlet for her tortured spirit she felt she would grow suddenly
mad, hysterical and babbling or passionate and wild.

So many moods had stormed through her since that night when she had
found all hope of rescue gone with her lost key! So many impulses
seethed frantically now beneath her quiet, as she faced for the last
time that white-misted image in the glass. She had a furious longing
to tear off that diadem and veil and heavy robe, to scatter the
ornaments and drive out all those maddeni