sty bonnets of all nations
confused the sight and paralyzed thought. Yet among all the women of both
worlds Zora Middlemist stood out remarkable. As Septimus Dix afterwards
explained, the rooms that evening contained a vague kind of conglomerate
woman and Zora Middlemist. And the herd of men envied the creature on whom
she smiled so graciously.

She was dressed in black, as became a young widow, but it was a black
which bore no sign of mourning. The black, sweeping ostrich plume of a
picture hat gave her an air of triumph. Black gloves reaching more than
halfway up shapely arms and a gleam of snowy neck above a black chiffon
bodice disquieted the imagination. She towered over her present companion,
who was five foot seven and slimly built.

"You've brought me all this stuff, but what am I to do with it?" he asked
helplessly.

"Perhaps I had better take care of it for you."

It was a relief from the oppressive loneliness to talk to a human being; so
she lingered wistfully in conversation. A pathetic eagerness came into the
man's face.

"I wish you would," said he, drawing a handful from his jacket pocket. "I
should be so much happier."

"You can hardly be such a gambler," she laughed.

"Oh, no! It's not that at all. Gambling bores me."

"Why do you play, then?"

"I don't. I staked that louis because I wanted to see whether I should be
interested. I wasn't, as I began to think about the guns. Have you had
breakfast?"

Again Zora was startled. A sane man does not talk of breakfasting at nine
o'clock in the evening. But if he were a lunatic perhaps it were wise to
humor him.

"Yes," she said. "Have you?"

"No. I've only just got up."

"Do you mean to say you've been asleep all day?"

"What's the noisy day made for?"

"Let us sit down," said Zora.

They found one of the crimson couches by the wall vacant, and sat down.
Zora regarded him curiously.

"Why should you be happier if I took care of your money?"

"I shouldn't spend it. I might meet a man who wanted to sell me a
gas-engine."

"But you needn't buy it."

"These fellows are so persuasive, you see. At Rotterdam last year, a man
made me buy a second-hand dentist's chair."

"Are you a dentist?" asked Zora.

"Lord, no! If I were I could have used the horrible chair."

"What did you do with it?"

"I had it packed up and despatched, carriage paid, to an imaginary person
at Singapore."

He made this announcement in his tired, gentle manner,