oidery covered with golden flowers,
below the plum-color and green. The high corsage of the white robe
covered the bosom fully, and was caught at the throat with a bunch of
blazing jewels. Under these soft draperies, tinkling in time with the
movements of an otherwise noiseless tread, there sounded ever the faint
note of the little bell. At the toe of shoes otherwise silent, there
peeped in and out the flash of diamonds, and in the dark masses of her
hair, shifting as she trod beneath each new sconce in turn, and catching
more and more brilliance as she advanced, there smoldered the flame of a
mass of scintillating gems. A queen's raiment was that of this unknown
beauty, and she herself might have been a queen as she swept down the
great hall, scornfully careless of the eyes of those other beauties.

She stepped to the place at the regent's right hand, with head high and
eyes undrooping. For a dramatic instant she paused, as though in the
rehearsal of a part--a part of which it might be said that the regent
was not alone the author. This triumph of woman over other women, this
triumph of vice over other vice, of effrontery over effrontery
akin--this could not have been so planned and executed by any but a
woman. One another these beauties might tolerate, knowing one another's
frailties as they did; yet the elegance, the disdain, the indifference
of this newcomer--this they could not support. Hatred sat in the bosom
of each woman there as she swept her courtesy to the new guest of the
regent, who took her place as of right at the head of the board and near
the regent's arm.

"Our gentlemen are somewhat late this evening," exclaimed Philippe.
"'Tis too bad the Abbe Dubois could not be with us to-night to
administer clerical consolation."

"Ah! _le drole_ Dubois!" exclaimed Madame de Tencin.

"And that vagabond, the Due de Richelieu--but we may not wait. Again
ladies, the glasses, or Bechamel will be aggrieved. And finally, though
I perceive most of you have graciously unmasked, let me say that the
moment has now arrived when we make plain all secrets."

He turned his gaze upon the woman at his right. As though at a signal,
she half rose, unclasped the circlet of gems at her throat, and swept
back across the arm of her chair the soft garment which enveloped her.

A sigh, a long breath of amazement broke from those other dames of
Paris. Not one of them but was sated with the blaze of diamonds, the
rich, red light of r