The hour was divine, the scene fascinating in its charm and seduction, at once sumptuous and refined. Nor was the setting less delightful, this elegant restaurant, this favourite haunt of fashion, where the invited guests one and all belonged to the wealthy aristocracy of Paris; supper was drawing to an end, the talk grew more brilliant than ever, the music was ravishing, the women lovely, the perfumes intoxicating, the flowers a feast for the eyes! No less than everything else the mysterious hues of the foliage, a weird tint of blue painted by the gleam of the electric lights, contributed to lend this corner of the Bois a look of unreality, a fairylike aspect like some fantastic scene on the stage, charming, delicious, entrancing! This evening the place was even more brilliantly lighted than usual. The papers had made much of the coming festivity; in celebration of a treaty of Commerce signed the previous week, the English Ambassador was paying this compliment to his colleague the Ambassador of Russia. Dinner was served at separate little tables. It was past midnight, the meal was almost over and conversation was more animated than ever. Apart from the other guests, at a table set at a distance from the others, sat dining quite alone a very beautiful woman, of an irreproachable elegance and one who, better still than Sonia Danidoff, could claim the rank of Royal Highness. The waiters named her to each other with baited breath: “Her Highness the Grand Duchess Alexandra.” It was in fact the haughty great lady, friend of Frederick Christian IV, King of Hesse-Weimar, the proud lady whom Juve and Fandor, and they alone, knew to be in reality the enigmatic Lady Beltham, the mistress of Fantômas! And truly, if some observer had chosen to watch the pretty woman in question, he would have shuddered to note with what a look, at once tragic and distraught, full of hate and violent animosity, she gazed at her gay and laughing neighbours, the guests of the Ambassadors of England and of Russia. It would seem indeed that the grand duchess had some secret motive for wishing to remain unseen by these members of Parisian society. Not content with choosing a remote table enveloped in deep shadow, she had likewise extinguished the little electric table lamp in front of her; the light thrown by the surrounding lamps was sufficient for her to see by. All through her meal the grand duchess sat pale and mute, barely answering the _maître d’hôtel_ who hovered near, eager to supply her wants, her eyes fixed on the other diners, from whose tables came burst after burst of merry laughter.