Would he see the incomparable Princess, who was lovelier and even still more a mystery than the Chevalier?
Would she--terrible thought!--succumb to his perfections?
III The Princess was already there, surrounded by a crowd of admirers, equal if not superior to those who were following the superb Chevalier.
Indeed, they met almost as rivals! Their eyes sought each other in splendid competition.

The Chevalier turned away, dazzled and incoherent.

"She is adorable, magnificent!" he gasped to McFeckless.
"I love her on the instant! Behold, I am transported, ravished! Present me." Indeed, as she stood there in a strange gauzy garment of exquisite colors, apparently shapeless, yet now and then revealing her perfect figure like a bather seen through undulating billows, she was lovely.
Two wands were held in her taper fingers, whose mystery only added to the general curiosity, but whose weird and cabalistic uses were to be seen later.

Her magnificent face--strange in its beauty--was stranger still, since, with perfect archaeological Egyptian correctness, she presented it only in profile, at whatever angle the spectator stood.
But such a profile! The words of the great Poet-King rose to McFeckless's lips: "Her nose is as a tower that looketh toward Damascus." He hesitated a moment, torn with love and jealousy, and then presented his friend.

"You will fall in love with her--and then--you will fall also by my hand," he hissed in his rival's ear, and fled tumultuously.
"Voulez-vous danser, mademoiselle ?" whispered the Chevalier in the perfect accent of the boulevardier.
"Merci, beaucoup," she replied in the diplomatic courtesies of the Ambassadeurs.
They danced together, not once, but many times, to the admiration, the wonder and envy of all; to the scandalized reprobation of a proper few.
Who was she?
Who was he?
It was easy to answer the last question: the world rang with the reputation of "Chevalier the Artist." But she was still a mystery.
Perhaps they were not so to each other! He was gazing deliriously into her eyes.