Resplendent in silks and furs and a marvelous necklace of diamonds, she sat with superior mien in an opera box. Now and again, with an air of infinite ennui and disdain, she glanced coolly aloft through her lorgnette at the eager poor in the steep, high altitudes of the galleries.

The people in the great opera house whispered to one another that the marvelous necklace of diamonds was unquestionably an imitation. "Somehow," they said, "it looks like one." But they were wrong. The necklace of diamonds was quite genuine. It was not the necklace of diamonds, but the lady that was the imitation.