would have instantly traversed every nook and corner of the place with a most admirable sang froid. "I should worry," was the device of her escutcheon—and, believe us, she held it high!
So up the stairs she raced, and into a room, spacious, brilliant with lights, crystal chandeliers, and the massive gilt frames of famous landscapes, as film and story have so often shown us—too often, it is to be feared, to the dispelling of the fascinating mystery.
This much censoring, however, must be made, to be accurate and faithful,—the films universality of clawhammers must be reduced by a few sacksuits, at least, and the desperate and Satanic look rubbed from the faces of the real winners—who happened to know the numbers of both straight and crooked wheels—and an expression somewhat plainer and less alarming substituted.
However, against this now trite and commonplace background two figures stood out in bold and original relief. One, of course, was the raging beauty who loomed in the doorway, her un-removed makeup under the bobbed mane and heavily pencilled eyes seeming more garish than ever; her eyelashes twisted by some ultra-modern process into dark star rays; and the crimson cape trailing over one shoulder to reveal a plump—and—unless you prefer the slender—a pleasing décolleté, swathed in a gleaming cuirass of gilt scales. Altogether a typical rig, for when one remembers Carlotta—person, props, or appointments—it is always in primary colours, never in subtler hues.
Now of late, Carlotta had entered another stage of her
