looted and burned to the ground.

A beautiful wanton of fourteen summers, ambitious, relentless, with the
eyes of an innocent child, the morals of a jackal and a fair supply of
brain-cunning rather than intellect, Zulannah sat this night of stars
in a corner of her balcony overlooking the Square, smoking endless
cigarettes.

Courtesan of the highest rank, she had plied her ruthless trade for
three successful years, accumulating incredible wealth in jewels and
hard cash. Her ambition knew no bounds; her greed no limit; her
jealousy of other women had become a by-word in the north.

Physically she was perfect; otherwise, she had not one saving grace,
and her enemies were legion. She had driven hard bargains, demanding
the very rings off men's fingers in exchange for kisses; shutting the
door with callous finality in the face of those she had beggared; she
had disowned her mother, who, stricken with ophthalmia, begged in the
streets; she had no mercy for man, woman or beast, yet all had gone
well until love had come to her.

Love comes to harlots and to queens as well as to us ordinary women,
and they suffer every whit as much as we do, perhaps more keenly on
account of the hopeless positions they fill.

It had come to Zulannah, uncontrollably, that night when, unveiled,
garbed in silks and satins and hung with jewels, she brazenly graced
the stage-box at a gala performance.

She looked down, and Ben Kelham, in the end seat of the first row of