and gauze that he had
never before faced and never would again. Like a bright wave the
throng closed about him and then surged on towards the bride upon
the throne.

How often, in the last years, Aimee had pitied that poor puppet of a
bride, stuck there like some impaled, winged creature, helpless for
flight, to the exhibition of the long stream of passersby! How often
she had promised herself that never would this be her fate, never
would she be given to an unknown! And now--

She was smiling as she faced them, that light, fixed smile she had
seen so often on others' lips, the smile of pride trying desperately
to hide its wounds from the penetrating glances of the curious.
Satiric, cynical, or sympathetic, that light smile defied them all,
but beneath its guard she felt she was slowly bleeding to death of
some mortal hurt.

The sympathy unconsciously betrayed, was hardest. The whispers of
her young maids of honor, "Really, Aimee, he looks so young! One
would never surmise," were more galling in their intended
consolation, more revealing in their betrayal of her friends' own
shrinking from that arrogant, dandified old man than the barbed dart
of the uncaring, inquisitive, "How do you find him, my dear? He has
the reputation for conquest!"

They were all there, her friends, young, slim, modish Turkish girls
whose time had not yet come, glancing quizzically about the ancient
drawing room, with its solid side of mashrubiyeh, its old wall
panelings of carvings and rare inlay, and then pointing their
glances back at her, as if to ask, "And is this our revoltee? Is
this her end, in this dim, old palace among the ghosts of the past?"

Some, the frankest, murmured, "But why did you not refuse?" and
others attempted consolation with a light, "As well the first as the
last--since we must all come to it."

Of the married women there were those who raised blank, bitter eyes
to her, and others, more mild, romantic, affectionate, tried to
infuse encouragement into their smiles as if they said,
"Come--courage--it's not so bad. And what would you? We are women,
after all; we do not need so much for happiness.

"Those dreams of yours for love, for a spirit to delight in your
spirit in place of a master delighting in your beauty alone, what
are they, those dreams, but the childish stuff of fancies? For other
races, perhaps--but for you, take hold of life. There are realities
yet in it to bring you joy."

It was all in their e