raid she was committing a faux pas. "Tell me
about it," she stammered. "Mammy Lucy says I'm surely supposed to wear
some lace, or a bouquet."

"Mammy Lucy isn't a Paris costumier," said Oliver, much amused. "Dear
me--wait until you have seen Mrs. Winnie!"

Mrs. Winnie had kindly sent her limousine car for them, and it stood
throbbing in front of the hotel-entrance, its acetylenes streaming far
up the street. Mrs. Winnie's home was on Fifth Avenue, fronting the
park. It occupied half a block, and had cost two millions to build and
furnish. It was known as the "Snow Palace," being all of white marble.

At the curb a man in livery opened the door of the car, and in the
vestibule another man in livery bowed the way. Lined up just inside the
door was a corps of imposing personages, clad in scarlet waistcoats and
velvet knee-breeches, with powdered wigs, and gold buttons, and gold
buckles on their patent-leather pumps. These splendid creatures took
their wraps, and then presented to Montague and Oliver a bouquet of
flowers upon a silver salver, and upon another salver a tiny envelope
bearing the name of their partner at this strictly "informal"
dinner-party. Then the functionaries stood out of the way and permitted
them to view the dazzling splendour of the entrance hall of the Snow
Palace. There was a great marble staircase running up from the centre
of the hall, with a carved marble gallery above, and a marble fireplace
below. To decorate this mansion a real palace in the Punjab had been
bought outright and plundered; there were mosaics of jade, and
wonderful black marble, and rare woods, and strange and perplexing
carvings.

The head butler stood at the entrance to the salon, pronouncing their
names; and just inside was Mrs. Winnie.

Montague never forgot that first vision of her; she might have been a
real princess out of the palace in the Punjab. She was a brunette,
rich-coloured, full-throated and deep-bosomed, with scarlet lips, and
black hair and eyes. She wore a court-gown of cloth of silver, with
white kid shoes embroidered with jewelled flowers. All her life she had
been collecting large turquoises, and these she had made into a tiara,
and a neck ornament spreading over her chest, and a stomacher. Each of
these stones was mounted with diamonds, and set upon a slender wire. So
as she moved they quivered and shimmered, and the effect was dazzling,
barbaric.

She must have seen that Montague was staggered, for