Her exquisite hair was dyed a curious colour. Naturally a bright brown,
it had been changed by art to a lighter, less warm hue, that was neither
flaxen nor golden, but that held a strange pallor, distinctive, though
scarcely beautiful. It had the merit of making her eyes look very vivid
between the painted shadows and the painted brows, and this fact had
been no doubt realized by the artist responsible for it. Apparently Mrs.
Chepstow relied upon the fascination of a peculiar, almost anæmic
fairness, in the midst of which eyes, lips, and brows stood forcibly out
to seize the attention and engross it. There was in this fairness, this
blanched delicacy, something almost pathetic, which assisted the
completion, in the mind of a not too astute beholder, of the impression
already begun to be made by the beautiful shape of the face.

When Doctor Meyer Isaacson had finished speaking, that face had been a
still but searching question; and almost immediately a question had come
from the red lips.

"Is there absolutely no unhealthy condition of body such as might be
expected to produce low spirits? You see how medically I speak!"

"None whatever. You are not even gouty, and three-quarters, at least, of
my patients are gouty in some form or other."

Mrs. Chepstow frowned.

"Then what would you advise me to do?" she asked. "Shall I go to a
priest? Shall I go to a philosopher? Shall I go to a Christian Science
temple? Or do you think a good dose of the 'New Theology' would benefit
me?"