"My dear child," said Mrs. Marsham with a touch of embarrassment and some mystery, "I have undertaken a surprise for you which it is quite time to reveal. For a long time you have desired to see a masked ball at the Pantheon, but as I dare not entrust you to the care of so frivolous a person as your new friend, Lady Vereker, I have decided to take you there myself."
"You, aunt!"
"Why not? To the pure all things are pure, and if my eyes commit the sin of looking upon evil, I shall at least have the consolation of screening your innocence from the dangerous spectacle. Moreover, I shall pray without ceasing, and the Lord will go with us."
"But we really ought to have a different sort of cavalier."
"I have thought of that, and have asked Mr. O'Flannigan to serve as our escort. He is a brave man, as he has amply proved himself to be. We shall have, in case of an emergency, an intrepid defender. He has consented, and all that remains is for us to prepare our costumes."
Good Mrs. Marsham forgot to add that, like her niece, she was dying to see a masked ball, and that the curiosity which had been devouring her for years played its little part in the famous "surprise."
"Above all things," she added, "not a word to Reuben!"
When at last she found herself alone in her chamber Esther could not but reflect upon the odd situation which was hurrying on towards a dangerous result. After all, she was free to go to the Pantheon, and even to wear a brown domino with blue rosettes, without its leading to anything culpable. Her heart beat, and she experienced that delicious vertigo which conducts the great-granddaughters of Eve to the verge of the abyss.
What should she do? Of whom ask advice? She had neither mother nor friend, at least no friend who merited the name. Under similar circumstances gamblers toss up a goldpiece; bigots open the Scriptures and the first verse upon which their eyes fall resolves their doubt after the manner of an oracle. At the moment she was standing before a table upon which rested a bust of Shakespeare with a vase of flowers, a sort of offering renewed each day as though it were a domestic altar. A book-shelf upon the wall contained the works of the great dramatist. In those pages, so often conned, Esther had learned to think and to feel, to know mankind, the world, and love. It was her Bible, her book of books, august and authentic revelation before all others, the repository of her religion and philosophy. For this reason, struck with a sudden inspiration, she caught up the volume, which opened of itself to the first scene of the second act of "All's Well That Ends Well." In the middle of the page five words seemed to blaze before her stupefied eyes,—
"By Heaven, I'll steal away!"