incense was not rising up before her altar, and the burnt offerings to
her were innumerable.

And all through these years she was sinking more deeply into slavery,
while she was ruling others. Her slavery was to herself. She was the
captive of her own vanity. Her love of admiration had developed into
an insatiable passion. She was ceaselessly in her tower spying out for
fresh lovers. From afar off she perceived them, and when they drew near
to her castle she stopped them on their way. She did not love them and
cast them to death like Tamara of the Caucasus. No; but she required of
them the pause on their travels, which was a tribute to her power. No
one must pass her by as if she were an ordinary woman.

Probably there is no weed in all the human garden which grows so fast as
vanity. Lady Sellingworth's vanity grew and grew with the years until
it almost devoured her. It became an idee fixe in her. A few people no
doubt knew this--a few women. But she was saved from all vulgarity of
vanity by an inherent distinction, not only of manner but of something
more intimate, which never quite abandoned her, which her vanity was
never able to destroy. Although her vanity was colossal, she usually
either concealed it, or if she showed it showed it subtly. She was not
of the type which cannot pass a mirror in a restaurant without staring
into it. She only looked into mirrors in private. Nor was she one of
those women who powder their faces and rouge their lips before men in
public places. It was impossible for her to be blatant. Nevertheless,
her moral disease led her gradually to fall from her own secret standard
of what a woman of her world should be. Craven had once said to himself
that Lady Sellingworth could never seek the backstairs. He was not
wholly right in this surmise about her. There was a time in her
life--the time when she was, or was called, a professional beauty--when