The doctor looked steadily at her a moment, hesitating whether he should utter all his thought.
“In that case,” he said slowly after a pause, “it is better he or she should leave.”
His tone and manner were exceedingly impressive.
“You mean there’s danger?” she asked.
“I mean, rather,” he replied earnestly, “that this great creative flood in him, so curiously focused now upon his Horus-falcon-bird idea, may result in some act of violence——”
“Which would be madness,” she said, looking hard at him.
“Which would be disastrous,” he corrected her. And then he added slowly: “Because in the mental moment of immense creation he might overlook material laws.”
The costume ball two nights later was a great success. Palazov was a Bedouin, and Khilkoff an Apache; Mme. de Drühn wore a national head-dress; Minski looked almost natural as Don Quixote; and the entire Russian “set” was cleverly, if somewhat extravagantly, dressed. But Binovitch and Vera were the most successful of all the two hundred dancers who took part. Another figure, a big man dressed as a Pierrot, also claimed exceptional attention, for though the costume was commonplace enough, there was something of dignity in his appearance that drew the eyes of all upon him. But he wore a mask, and his identity was not discoverable.
It was Binovitch and Vera, however, who must have won the prize, if prize there had been, for they not only looked their parts, but acted them as well. The former in his dark grey feather tunic, and his falcon mask, complete even to the brown hooked beak and tufted talons, looked fierce and splendid. The disguise was so admirable, yet so entirely natural, that it was uncommonly seductive. Vera, in blue and gold, a charming head-dress of a dove upon her loosened hair, and a pair of little dove-pale wings fluttering from her shoulders, her tiny twinkling feet and slender ankles well visible, too, was equally successful and admired. Her large and timid eyes, her flitting movements, her light and dainty way of dancing—all added touches that made the picture perfect.