With a tearing effort I wrested my own away from those flaming black ones. They fell upon the Walters
doll. Stiffly, I reached to take it up-why, I did not know. The doll-maker was quicker than I. She
snatched up the doll with her uninjured hand, and held it to her breast. She cried, in a voice whose
vibrant sweetness ran through every nerve, augmenting the creeping lethargy:
"You will not look at me? You will not look at me! Fools-you can do nothing else!"
Then began that strange, that utterly strange episode that was the beginning of the end.
The aromatic fragrance seemed to pulse, to throb, grow stronger. Something like a sparkling mist whirled
out of nothingness and covered the doll-maker, veiling the horse-like face, the ponderous body. Only her
eyes shone through that mist…
The mist cleared away. Before us stood a woman of breath-taking beauty-tall and slender and exquisite.