She looked like some goddess of mythology, rather than a
living woman, and as Julian Estcourt gazed at her he felt a sudden
thrill of awe.

Could that more than mortal beauty ever really be his--his in the common
prose of possession that can never be disassociated with marriage--the
prose that is to the delicate subtle beauty of love, what the rough
touch is to the wings of the butterfly, the bloom of the grape?

For a moment the thought seemed like sacrilege. He could have fallen at
her feet in a sudden adoration of the divine beauty and purity of
embodied womanhood. "If ever she has lived before," he said in his
heart, "it must have been as a vestal virgin, or a martyred saint.
Where in the world is such another woman?"

The voice of the cynical philosopher broke on his ear and disturbed his
thoughts. "Madame, it is my humble opinion that you could convince us
of anything you desired. Happy are those who have so charming a
disciple to expound their doctrines, happier still the fortunate few to
whom those doctrines are to be expounded by lips so lovely and a heart
so wise."

Ere the circle had quite recovered from its astonishment at hearing a
speech so flattering uttered by their surly Diogenes, they had parted to
make way for the beautiful stranger, and the last gleam of her snowy
robes had floated through the doorway, as a cloud melts into the
darkness of descending night.

There was a sort of long-drawn breath, a feeling as of long tension
suddenly set free, a turning as if by one accord to one another. Then--
well, then all the tongues leaped into action, and for the remainder of
that evening, like Thackeray's folk "At the Springs," they talked, and
they talked, _and they talked_.

CHAPTER TEN.

PREMONITION.

When the Princess Zairoff was in the privacy of her own boudoir, she
turned to Colonel Estcourt in a sudden appeal:

"Why did you make me go, Julian?" she said. "I knew I should only shock
them. I can't ever put up with that languid ignorant curiosity."

"I think it will do them good to be shocked," he said, with a smile.
"Give them something to think of beside their ailments. And I had a
special reason," he went on with a deeper note of tenderness in his
voice--"I do not wish you to shut yourself away as you have been doing.
You will grow morbid and dissatisfied with life. I want you to take a
healthy interest in it once again."

She had thrown herself on a low cushioned lounge b