In Sight of St. Paul's — page 188: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

BIRDS OF PREY. 183 to be fascinated, to dazzle for a brief hour, aud then, stripped of all, to be left with a cynical laugh, to struggle through or leave their ruined lives as pleased them best. And now, on her natal day, she had determined upon this entertainment which should be the acme of folly, for which money should be flung away with both hands, as if it were the merest dirt. Forgetfulness, forgetfulness was all she asked, if only for that one night. Was it her conscience that was troubling’ her, or was it grief for the untimely fate of the one man she had loved as well as it was in her nature to love any one? Who can tell? Probably she herself would have found it impossible to answer this question. — At all events she flung herself, heart and soul, into the preparations for her birthday ze. The decorations were to be magnificent, the supper — superb, and the music the finest procurable for money; and the Panther, queen as she was of her own peculiar world, had no lack of the golden coin of the realm. Neither Mabel Gray nor Cora Pearl, at the height of their famous or infamous careers, was more renowned, more sought after, more adored by the gilded youth than she. . And this entertairiment to-night, leaving out all its gorgeousness, was to be unique in at least one re- spect. ‘Ihe imale sex was to be strictly excluded. _ Eco comirebooks