XXIII THE GREAT MOGUL


I

THE WOMAN WITH THE DIAMOND

I was, perhaps, the plainest girl in the room that night. I was
also the happiest--up to one o'clock. Then my whole world
crumbled, or, at least, suffered an eclipse. Why and how, I am
about to relate.

I was not made for love. This I had often said to myself; very
often of late. In figure I am too diminutive, in face far too
unbeautiful, for me to cherish expectations of this nature.
Indeed, love had never entered into my plan of life, as was
evinced by the nurse's diploma I had just gained after three
years of hard study and severe training.

I was not made for love. But if I had been; had I been gifted
with height, regularity of feature, or even with that eloquence
of expression which redeems all defects save those which savor of
deformity, I knew well whose eye I should have chosen to please,
whose heart I should have felt proud to win.

This knowledge came with a rush to my heart--(did I say heart? I
should have said understanding, which is something very
different)--when, at the end of the first dance, I looked up from
the midst of the bevy of girls by whom I was surrounded and saw
Anson Durand's fine figure emerging from that quarter of the hall