The girl-shade heard the words intoned in _mezzo voce_. At the door of the throne-room she paused, loath to enter the next scene of the co-star piece. All the day following the completion of her story of earth she had lain within her chamber, in a state of narcosis, varied only by the dull ache of dread. All day she had expected the summons which now had come, that she appear before the King. Through the séances she had done her best; had whipped her spirit as a slave-seller might have lashed some modest, naked body on the block. She had come for the reckoning. If so be it she had met the royal expectations, her reward would be that lowest high office yet assigned in Greater Gehenna--She-Destroyer of Womankind. If she had failed---- “_And the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born._” Again the deep intonations. Glancing into the blaze of light which had confused her eyes after her approach through the dim, winding corridors, Dolores saw a tall figure in the full effect of male evening attire on earth, with back toward her and gestures directed into one of the mercurized walls. Her hesitation was mastered by surprise. Even on closer view, she scarcely could believe that this superb copy of the men of Earth indeed was His Satanic Majesty. His hair, formerly pompadoured to conceal his horns, was clipped, parted on one side and slicked back, the indices of power evidently razored close. The auburn Vandyke which had been inseparable from her concept of him was the more noticeable now for its absence. In its place, a smile whose charm would have been hard to describe clothed the well-sculped lips. The lines and color of His Highness’ costume adhered to what she knew was “latest” form--all except his tie. That was of a red which vividly reminded her of that Justice Roscoe Strang, whose independence of judicial precedent had been suggested by a like daring note in otherwise sombre dress. “Ah, sweet Grief,” he saluted her. “I feel indebted to you for the basic idea of my sermon on ‘The Service of Suicide.’ You’ve caught me at a rehearsal. I was just reading my text, ‘To Hell with the Ill-Begot.’ We mustn’t overlook the propaganda out of the mouths of babes and sucklings in our new Drive of Destruction, eh?” “Mustn’t we?” she evaded wretchedly. “Come, cheer down! Did my mere mention of a sermon make you pull the doleful face of the average religionist in church? You haven’t said how you like my style to-night. Am I not beautiful and _à la mode_?” He appeared to be in an unusually amiable mood. A turn or two he took around her, evidently to note the reflection on her face as well as in the mirror. “Is it possible----” in sudden suspicion he peered at her--“that you don’t like me razored?” “You look--very well.”