She stepped to the place at the regent’s right hand, with head high and eyes undrooping.  For a dramatic instant she paused, as though in the rehearsal of a part—­a part of which it might be said that the regent was not alone the author.  This triumph of woman over other women, this triumph of vice over other vice, of effrontery over effrontery akin—­this could not have been so planned and executed by any but a woman.  One another these beauties might tolerate, knowing one another’s frailties as they did; yet the elegance, the disdain, the indifference of this newcomer—­this they could not support.  Hatred sat in the bosom of each woman there as she swept her courtesy to the new guest of the regent, who took her place as of right at the head of the board and near the regent’s arm.

“Our gentlemen are somewhat late this evening,” exclaimed Philippe.  “’Tis too bad the Abbe Dubois could not be with us to-night to administer clerical consolation.”

“Ah! le drole Dubois!” exclaimed Madame de Tencin.

“And that vagabond, the Due de Richelieu—­but we may not wait.  Again ladies, the glasses, or Bechamel will be aggrieved.  And finally, though I perceive most of you have graciously unmasked, let me say that the moment has now arrived when we make plain all secrets.”

He turned his gaze upon the woman at his right.  As though at a signal, she half rose, unclasped the circlet of gems at her throat, and swept back across the arm of her chair the soft garment which enveloped her.

A sigh, a long breath of amazement broke from those other dames of Paris.  Not one of them but was sated with the blaze of diamonds, the rich, red light of rubies and the fathomless radiance of sapphires.  Silks and satins and cloth of gold and silver had few novelties for them.  The costumers of Paris, center of the world of art, even in those times of unrivaled extravagance and unbridled self-gratification, held no new surprise for these beauties, possessed so long of all that their imagination required or that princely liberality could supply.  Yet here indeed was a surprise.

As she stood at the regent’s right, calmly and composedly looking down the long board as she arranged her drapery before reseating herself, this new favorite of the regent appeared in the full costume of the American native!  A long soft tunic of exquisitely dressed white leather fell below her hips, intricately embroidered in the native bead work of America, and stained with great blotches of colors done in the quills of the porcupine—­heavy reds, sprightly yellows, and deep blues.  Down the seams of this loose-fitting tunic depended little waving fringes.  The belt which caught it at the waist was wrought likewise in beads.  Beneath the level of the table, as she stood, the inquiring eyes might not so clearly see; yet the white leggings, fringed and beaded, and covered by a sweeping blanket of snowy buckskin, might have been seen to finish at the ankle and blend in texture and ornamentation with tiny shoes, which covered the smallest foot yet seen in Paris—­shoes at the side of which there dangled the little bells of metal whose tones had told her coming.