“The prettiest h’I h’ever did see,” she pronounced with satisfaction, “H’as pretty as a wax figger now—­h’only a thought too waxy.”

And like a wax figure indeed, immobile, rigid, the bride was standing before them, arrayed at last in the shimmering white of the sweeping satin, overrich of lace and orange flowers, and shrouded in the clouding waves of her veil.  White as her robes, pale as death and as still, the girl looked out at them, and only that sick pallor of her face and the glitter of her dark eyes betrayed the tumult within.

“Your diadem, my dear—­you are keeping us attending,” came Madame de Coulevain’s voice from the door.

The diadem, that heavy circlet of brilliants which crowned the Eastern bride in place of the orange wreath of Western convention, must not be touched by the bride’s fingers but placed by one of her friends, married and married but once, and exceptionally happy in that marriage.

Ghul-al-Din, Aimee’s selection from her friends, stepped hastily forward now, a soft, dimpled, slow-smiling girl, her eyes drowsy with domesticity.  No question of Ghul-al-Din’s happiness!  She extolled her husband, a young captain of cavalry, and she adored her infant son, a prodigy among children.  Life for her was a rosy, unquestioning absorption.

A shaft of irony sped through Aimee, as she bent her head for its crowning at this young wife’s hands, and received the ceremonial wishes for her crowning of happiness, a crowning occurring but once in her lifetime.  Irony was the only salvation for the hour; without that outlet for her tortured spirit she felt she would grow suddenly mad, hysterical and babbling or passionate and wild.

So many moods had stormed through her since that night when she had found all hope of rescue gone with her lost key!  So many impulses seethed frantically now beneath her quiet, as she faced for the last time that white-misted image in the glass.  She had a furious longing to tear off that diadem and veil and heavy robe, to scatter the ornaments and drive out all those maddening spectators, all those interested, eager, unknowing, uncaring spectators of her humiliation.

Arranging her veil, draping her satins, as if gauze and silk were all that mattered to this hour!  Wishing her happiness—­as if happiness could ever be hers now for the wishing!  Smiling, fluttering, complimenting, lending to the ghastly sacrifice the familiar acceptances of every day....

If only she could wake from this nightmare and find that it was all a dream.  If only she could brush this confusion from her senses and from her heart its dumb terrors....  If only she had the courage for some desperate revolt, some outburst of strength—­

“I am ready,” she said faintly, turning from the glass, and moved towards the door, while a young eunuch bent for her train, that train of three yards length, which stretched so regally behind her in her slow descent of the stairs.