They had drifted from the outskirts of the crowded table and found themselves in the thinner crowd of saunterers.

It was the height of the Monte Carlo season and the feathers and diamonds and rouge and greedy eyes and rusty 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.