From a chair near the window a young girl quickly arose, laying aside a novel, and Nick inquired if Madame Victoria was in. “Yes, sir, but she is engaged just now,” said the girl. “She will be at liberty in a few minutes, however.” “I’ll wait,” said Nick tersely. “Take a chair, sir. If you will give me your card, sir, I will take it to Madame Victoria as soon as her visitor leaves, and will learn whether she will give you a sitting at this time. It is nearly her hour for lunch.” Nick did not discuss the matter. He gave the girl a card bearing a fictitious name, with several of which he was always provided. Presently a richly dressed, middle-aged woman emerged from an inner room, drying her eyes with her handkerchief. She hurriedly departed, however, after viewing her hat and hair in the mirror. “She must have heard from some dead one,” thought Nick, with grim derisiveness. “Either that, or some infernal calamity has been predicted for her. I’m blessed if I’m not a good bit curious to know what I shall get in there. Maybe I shall get it in the neck.” He had not long to wait, for the servant presently announced that Madame Victoria would receive him in the inner room. Nick left his hat on the table, and entered. At first sight the view within was startling. The single window of the inner room was heavily curtained with black, excluding every ray of daylight. Above a small square table in the middle of the floor, however, there burned two electric lights enveloped in green globes, the rays from which shed a weird and uncanny light throughout the room. On the walls were hung numerous astrological charts, a number of horoscopes of celebrated men, more accurately cast after death than before; and along with these were various devices and insignia, of the meaning and object of which Nick was entirely ignorant. On a stand near the table were several packs of playing-cards, presumably for fortune-telling, if no other amusement. In other respects the room was well furnished, with a book-case against one wall, a couch opposite, and several small but expensive chairs. What chiefly startled Nick, however, was less this curious appearance of the room than that of its solitary inmate. Madame Victoria was seated at the table, a woman under thirty, large of figure, without being corpulent, an attractive, self-reliant face, and an abundance of brownish-red hair done up in picturesque disorder. She was clad in a long purple robe, figured with small silver stars, along with a crescent moon here and there among them, the whole conveying a vague suggestion of a midnight sky. The garment was voluminous, entirely covering her waist and skirts. From the large, loose sleeves, and in vivid contrast with the rich dark-purple, protruded a pair of shapely bare arms and hands; yet both these and the woman’s face, uplifted when Nick entered, were lent a disagreeable, deathlike pallor by the green light of the room.