"Then we'll change our trysting-place. At any rate, prithee, let us enjoy to-night." Here Mr. Vernon put on his mask and taking off his gown resumed it inside out. "Do you see, dear charmer, I am both porcelain and lacker, so that no one will be able to say you prefer the one to the other. Hark! the fiddles have begun—let's go and step our first gavotte together."
Phyllida took his arm and they returned to the ballroom. The vizards made all the faces appear fixed and wooden and Miss Courteen could not help looking very often at Mr. Charles Lovely who was sitting cross-legged on his azure cushion and, in contrast to the rest of the masquerade, was plainly a man. Once she fancied she caught his eye, and when he came up and asked her to honour his arm for the third gavotte, she knew she had not been mistaken. Mr. Vernon silently relinquished his partner.
"Who was your late Vis à Vis?" Charles inquired. "I beg your pardon," he added as he saw Phyllida hesitate, "my manners grow as barbarick as my costume."
He had noticed with devout jealousy that Miss Courteen's fingers reposed a moment longer than was necessary upon that sattin forearm.
"How did you discover me?" she asked with frank interest.
"’Twas not difficult."
"But masked as I am?"
"I did not regard your mask—I saw your eyes."
Phyllida was conscious of a blush and a faint quickening of the pulses, all over her body. There was certainly something very satisfactory in such a compliment. It was genuine moreover, for indeed he had discovered her through the distorted yellow vizard which concealed her roses.
Presently the dance began, and, though Phyllida liked every moment of it, she could not help observing Amor, half buried in the greenery of an alcove and, as it seemed to her, forbidding too keen a pleasure.