But to-night this face of common objects rose out of the most wonderful gown in shades of orange that was ever seen. It was crowned too in a winking splendour of diamonds that shouted and sang in her sandy-coloured hair, and round her neck were half-a-dozen rows of marvellous pearls. While the curtain was up she sat close to the front of her box with her eyes undeviatingly fixed on the stage, and when the curtain fell she stood there a minute more, so that the whole house should get a good view of her. She did not look about her; she merely stood there, seemingly unconscious of the opera-glasses that were turned on her from all quarters of the house. All round, everybody was asking everybody else who the woman with the diamond Crystal Palace was, and nobody knew. Nor did anybody know, not even Mrs. Isaacs, the fashionable clairvoyante, who exposed a considerable portion of her ample form in the stalls, that through the mists of the horizon there faintly shone to-night the star of surpassing magnitude that was to climb to the very zenith, and burn there in unwinking splendour. For the next week Sarah took no direct step forward, but sat in the Ritz Hotel, or in her box at the opera, or drove about on shopping errands. Among these latter must be included a quantity of visits to house-agents, who had in their hands the letting of furnished houses in such localities as Grosvenor Square and Brook Street, and what seemed to interest her more than the houses themselves was the question of who was wishing to let them. But she was in no hurry: she was perfectly well aware that the first steps were of the utmost importance, and before she stepped at all, she wanted to find the largest and strongest stepping-stone available. The evening usually found her alone in her opera-box, seemingly absorbed in the presentation of Russian ballet, and unconscious of the opera-glasses levelled at her. She gave the opera-glasses something to look at too, for she never appeared twice in the same gown, but in a series of last cries, most stimulating to the observer. One night she wore a sort of bonnet of ospreys on her head, and again everybody asked everybody else who the Cherokee Indian was. But again nobody knew, and so they all supposed that the ospreys were made of celluloid. But they had an uncomfortable idea that they might be genuine. But if so, who’s were they? London began to be genuinely intrigued.