I stood in a large room furnished after the fashion of a drawing-room, and resplendent with candles and gilding.  The carpet was rich, the walls were hung with pictures, which if garish in colour were not tasteless in design, and between these glittered a quantity of gilded mirrors that caught and reflected the rays of a huge candelabrum depending from the centre of the ceiling.  Innumerable wax candles also shone in various parts of the room, while here and there rich chairs and sofas were disposed; but these were for the most part unoccupied, for the guests were clustered together beneath the great candelabrum.

They were about thirty in number, and from their appearance I judged them to belong to very different classes of society.  Some were poorly and even miserably attired, others adorned with gorgeous, and not a few with valuable, jewellery.  Here stood one who from his clothes seemed to be a poor artisan; there lounged a fop in evening dress.  There was also a sprinkling of women, and not a few wore masks of some black stuff concealing the upper part of their faces.

But the strangest feature of the company was that one and all were entirely and even breathlessly watching the table in their midst.  Even the idlest scarcely raised his eyes to greet us as we entered, and for a moment or two I paused at the door as one who had no business with this strange assemblage.  During these few moments I was able to grasp the main points of what I saw.

The guests were grouped around the table, some sitting and others standing behind their chairs.  The table itself was oblong in shape, and at its head sat the most extraordinary woman it had ever been my lot to behold.  She was of immense age, and so wrinkled that her face seemed a very network of deeply-printed lines.  Her complexion, even in the candle-light, was of a deep yellow, such as is rarely seen in the most jaundiced faces.  Despite her age, her features were bold and bore traces of a rare beauty outlived; her eyes were of a deep yet glittering black, and as they flashed from the table to the faces of her guests, seemed never to wink or change for an instant their look of intense alertness.

But what was most noteworthy in this strange woman was neither her eyes, her wrinkles, nor her curious colour, but the amazing quantity of jewels that she wore.  As she sat there beneath the glare of the candelabrum she positively blazed with gems.  With every motion of her quick hands a hundred points of fire leapt out from the diamonds on her fingers; with every turn of her wrinkled neck the light played upon innumerable facets; and all the time those cold, lustrous eyes scintillated as brightly as the stones.  She was engaged in the game as we entered, and turned her gaze upon us for an instant only, but that momentary flash was so cold, so absolutely un-human, that I doubted if I looked upon reality.  The whole assembly seemed rather like a room full of condemned spirits, with this woman sitting as presiding judge.