Five years had glided by since the eventful incidents related in the preceding chapters, and another anniversary of the Versailles disaster had been added to the list.

It was about nine o'clock in the evening, and a tall, slender brunette, of elegant form and figure, whose beautiful face expressed intelligence and firmness both, was giving the finishing touches to a dazzling toilette. She was assisted in this serious and important occupation by two skillful maids, one of whom was clasping a necklace of large, sparkling diamonds around the white throat of her charming mistress, while the other adjusted a magnificent diadem of the same precious stones on the raven black hair.

The choice of these diamonds had evidently been made after much deliberation, for a number of jewel cases, containing pearls, rubies, and other precious ornaments of enormous value, still lay open on a toilet table near by.

One of the maids, being much older than her companion, and having been in the service of her mistress for many years, seemed to enjoy a certain degree of familiarity near the countess—who was a Russian as well as herself—which permitted her many observations not usually tolerated from her class.

"Does madame like the diadem as it is now?" she asked in her own tongue.

"Well enough," replied Countess Zomaloff, nonchalantly, casting a last glance at the large mirror before her. "Where is my bouquet?"

"Here, madame."

"Heavens! how frightfully yellow and faded it is!" cried the countess, shrinking back.

"The duke has just sent it," ventured the maid.

"I recognize his good taste," said the countess sarcastically, as she shrugged her pretty shoulders disdainfully. "I would wager the flowers were ordered yesterday morning by some lover who broke off with his mistress during the day, and consequently did not call for them in the evening. The Duke de Riancourt is the only man in the world capable of discovering such bargains!"

"Ah! madame, can you believe he would economize to that point?" protested the maid. "He is so rich!"

"That makes it only the more probable."

A rap on the door of the boudoir adjoining the dressing-room, interrupted the conversation, and the French maid vanished, returning almost immediately with the information that the duke had arrived and was at madame's orders.

"Let him wait," observed the countess carelessly. "Is the princess in the drawing-room?"

"Yes, madame."

"Very well—here Katinka, clasp this bracelet," resumed the countess, addressing the Russian maid in her own language once more, "and see what time it is."

Katinka turned to the clock and was opening her lips to reply, when her mistress forestalled her by saying, with a mocking smile:

"After all, why should I make such an inquiry. The duke has just arrived, half-past nine must—"

The half-hour stroke from the clock on the chimney interrupted her, and she broke into a merry, rippling laugh.

"What did I tell you, Katinka," she laughed, "the duke is a veritable clock in exactitude."

"It proves his love and devotion, madame," rejoined the maid.

"I would prefer a less well-regulated love, Katinka," retorted the countess. "These persons who worship at fixed hours seem to have a watch where the heart ought to be. There now, I am almost sorry to be so completely dressed and ready, and to have no excuse to make that poor duke wait longer to reward him for his pitiless exactitude."

"But, madame," remonstrated the maid, "if you dislike him so, why do you marry him?"

"Why?" echoed the countess, absent-mindedly, giving another glance at the mirror; "why do I marry M. de Riancourt? Really, Katinka, you are more inquisitive than I am; does one ever know why one marries?"

"Everybody seems to think there exist excellent reasons for this marriage, nevertheless," pursued Katinka. "Although M. de Riancourt has no gold mines in Crimea, silver mines in the Ural Mountains, diamond—"

"In mercy, Katinka, don't go over the list of my riches!" cried the countess, impatiently.

"Well, madame, although the duke has not your immense possessions, he is one of the wealthiest and greatest noblemen in France; he is young and handsome, has never led a dissipated life, and—"

"And he is worthy of wearing a wreath of orange blossoms on our wedding day—a right which I have not; but, in heaven's name, spare me his virtues. My aunt sounds his praises loud enough without assistance."

"Yes, the princess is very fond of monsieur le duc, and she is not the only one who—"

"Give me a cloak," interrupted her mistress, "the night is chilly."

"Has madame given her orders for the twentieth of the month?" went on the persistent maid.

"What orders?"

"Has madame forgotten that her marriage takes place a week from to-day?"

"What! a week from to-day?—so soon!"

"Madame fixed the date for May 20, and this is May 12—"

"If I said the twentieth, I suppose it must be on the twentieth—give me my fan."

The maid brought a collection of magnificent fans and placed them before her mistress to allow her to make a choice.

"How singular," murmured the countess, half to herself, as she picked out a veritable Watteau from the rich collection; "I am young and free, and abhor constraint, yet I have chosen a master."

"A master!" exclaimed Katinka. "Why, the duke is so good and kind, madame! You will make whatever you wish of him."

"I shall never make an agreeable man of him; and yet, I shall marry him. Ah! my good aunt, your advice may cause me to commit a great folly," she added, half laughing, half serious, as she gazed mechanically at the mischievous little god of love on her fan. "I made a blind choice among men equal in rank and riches, all so mediocre and uninteresting that it mattered not which I chose. This was the motive of my preference for M. de Riancourt, Katinka. Besides, although marriage has its inconveniences, widowhood has still greater ones. So, it is the better to marry, after all; it saves the trouble of wondering what we shall do."

Having thus summarily settled this question, Countess Zomaloff proceeded to the drawing-room, where she found her aunt and the duke awaiting her.

Princess Wileska was a tall, distinguÉ woman, with powdered hair and imposing presence, who presented a striking contrast to the meagre personage engaged in conversation with her. The Duke de Riancourt was a small, nervous man of thirty years or thereabouts, with a sanctimonious, unctuous mien, shifting eyes and long, smooth hair, carefully parted near the middle of the forehead, and a rigidity of movement that showed great empire over himself.

As the countess entered, he advanced toward her slowly, bowed low and raised her pretty hand to his lips with respectful courtesy; then, straightening himself up, he gazed at her for a moment as if dazzled, and cried, admiringly: "Ah! countess, I have never seen these diamonds! I don't believe you could find their equal anywhere. Heavens! how beautiful, how magnificent they are!"

"Really, my dear duke," rejoined the countess, with well feigned embarrassment, "I am much confused—that is, for the jeweler who sold them to me—one could never be more gallant than you; and since these diamonds cause you so much tender emotion, inspire such gracious compliments, such ingenious flattery, I can do no less than confide to you the charming name of the bewitching lapidary—his name is Ezechiel Rabotautencraff, and he resides in Frankfort."

While the amazed duke was searching a reply to this sarcastic sally, the princess gave a reproachful glance to her niece; then, turning to the discomfited nobleman with a forced smile, said playfully:

"How much Foedora does like to tease you, my dear duke. This is her way of showing her affection to those she loves."

"I will humbly confess, my dear princess," said the duke, anxious to repair his awkward blunder, "that I was so dazzled by those magnificent stones that, for a moment, I forgot to render homage to the charms of the wearer. But—but—may not one be dazzled by the sun while gazing at a charming flower?"

"I find your comparison of the sunstroke and the flower so gallant and to the point," retorted the malicious young woman, "that I am tempted to believe it was this very same sunstroke that so outrageously withered these poor flowers," and a gay ripple of laughter broke from her lips, as she pointed to the faded blossoms sent by the duke that evening.

The unfortunate man flushed to the roots of his hair, while the princess frowned at her irrepressible niece.

"Pray offer your arm to my aunt, my dear duke," resumed the countess, totally indifferent to the divers emotions she had caused.

"I promised the embassadress de Sardaigne I would come early, as she is to present me to a relative, and, as you know, we must first visit that enchanted palace you spoke of, in all its details. This is an odd time for such a visit, it is true; but I admit I have a weakness or, rather, a passion, for anything odd. Originality is such a rare, charming thing!"

Preceding her aunt and the duke, the bewitching countess ran lightly down the wide stairs of the elegantly furnished house she had rented in the Rue de Rivoli, while in search of the mansion she wished to purchase in Paris.

On that evening the duke was to take his friends out in his own carriage; a very permissible liberty, since the bans of his marriage with the countess had already been published. After a few moments of waiting at the door of the mansion, the aunt and niece saw an enormous yellow landau advancing toward them, drawn by two emaciated horses mercilessly lashed by a coachman in red and blue livery.

"Why—this is not your carriage?" gasped the countess, gazing at the duke in amazement as the footman opened the portiÈre of the vehicle.

"Certainly, madame," he replied. "And what has become of that pretty blue victoria, with the dapple grays, you placed at our disposal yesterday morning?"

"Under the present condition of affairs, my dear countess, I may as well make a clean breast of it," rejoined the duke, with touching abandon. "That I may not fatigue my valuable horses—for they did cost me enormously—I hire a carriage for the evening. This is a great point of economy, for it is always a risk to take out a valuable turnout at night."

"You are perfectly right, my dear duke," the princess hastened to say, fearing a new sarcasm from her niece; and, without further ado, she entered the heavy, lumbering thing, leaning on the arm of her escort.

The duke then offered his hand to the countess to assist her in her turn; but she stopped with one dainty foot resting on the last step, and peered curiously within.

"My dear aunt," she said sweetly, "will you be kind enough to examine the carriage well?"

"Why, my dear," asked the princess naÏvely.

"Because I am afraid some freckled, red-headed miss, or some fat city merchant may have been forgotten in some obscure corner of this thing. These worthy people usually drive out in family parties in just such equipages, and I have a horrible fear of finding some of them under the seats."

"Really, Foedora, I fail to understand you," returned the princess, angrily, while her niece sank in the seat beside her with a laugh. "You are absurdly severe toward M. de Riancourt—what can you be thinking of?"

"I want to cure him of his meanness and impudence," retorted the countess, coolly. "Could I better prove my interest in him?"

At that moment the duke entered the carriage and took his seat opposite the princess and her niece. Though he seemingly endured with the most Christianly patience all the railleries of the young woman who possessed all kinds of precious mines, the furtive glance he cast on her now and then, and the contraction of his thin lips, betrayed the rancour that filled his heart and foreboded no good for the future.

"To the Ramon mansion," he ordered the footman, who stood at the door.

"Beg pardon, monsieur, but I don't know where it is," replied the man, respectfully.

"At the end of the Cours-la-Reine, in the direction of the quartier Jean-Gonjan," explained the duke.

"Monsieur means that large mansion which has been in course of construction for so many years?"

"That very place," assented the duke.

The footman closed the carriage door, gave his instructions to the coachman, who lashed his jaded horses, and the lumbering landau started in the direction of Cours-la-Reine, where the marvelous Saint-Ramon mansion was situated.