It was early as yet and the crowd was thin, but more people were arriving all the time, some in fancy costume, but most of them in dominoes. Fru Bjork marshalled her party to the box she had taken,—it was in the second tier, near the stage, and there was a table in it as they were to have supper served from Aragno's. Estelle and Astrid pressed to the front of the box, and Ragna sat down on the little bench at the side, behind Astrid.
"Why, Ragna, child," said Fru Bjork, "don't you want to see what's going on, now you're here?"
"I am still a little tired," she answered, "and there is not much to see now, by and by it will be more interesting."
Astrid turned her head.
"What on earth made you such a fool as to tire yourself all out in the crowd to-day?"
Ragna thought she detected a note of suspicion in the question and a wave of terror swept over her,—suppose someone were to guess? She made an effort and answered jestingly, forcing the note. Fortunately the attention of the party was soon taken up with the scene below, leaving her to her own thoughts. The boxes were rapidly filling, and on the floor below a variegated crowd surged to and fro. Near the entrance a number of young men in evening dress and without masks, scanned curiously the entering dominoes, sometimes accosting them, and sometimes being accosted in the conventional falsetto. Marguérites, Columbines, peasant-girls, flower-girls abounded, and the air seemed thick with Pierrots. All the women, without exception, were masked, and it gave them an assurance, not to say audacity of manner very different from that of ordinary occasions. They were daring, provocantes, insolent even, and the young men enjoyed it hugely. A babel of voices and laughter rose from the throng, almost drowning the orchestra, but as yet all was orderly and quiet. Women in dominoes walked about in pairs, stopping to talk to men, often separating, and joining other groups. It was a human kaleidescope.
Ragna leaned over Estelle's shoulder and gazed apprehensively about; she did not see the face she feared, however, and sank back into her place.
"Surely he would not have the courage to come here—now," she thought. He was to have come masked, wearing a tuberose in his button-hole and carrying one in his left hand. If he should come notwithstanding, what should she do? At least, she thought, her mask was a protection,—there would be no necessity for recognising him.
The door of the box opened and an attaché of the Swedish-Norwegian Legation entered, bowing. He was a distant connection of Fru Bjork's, and had come to offer his services to the ladies. His attentions to Astrid had long been joked about by the others, and it may be said that Astrid did not discourage them. "So convenient to have him about,—besides he is a sort of cousin," she had said to her Mother, when that lady remonstrated with her on the subject. So Count Lotten was made welcome and Fru Bjork invited him to sup with them. He promptly accepted and set about earning his salt by pointing out such well-known people as he recognised.
As the time passed the scene grew livelier, dancers filled the centre of the floor, cutting the most surprising capers, one Pierrot in particular drawing the applause of the spectators by his daring antics. No one seemed to resent the liberties he took, the whisper having gone about that he was the young Prince C—— a spoilt darling of the Roman aristocracy, Count Lotten told the ladies, and Astrid sighed.