"'Perhaps?'
"'And if I were there, and watching, you would make a sign to me?'
"'I might even do that, if you were to ask me nicely.'
"So Clarisse was enlisted as my ally, though without being taken into my confidence; and I felt sure that with her help I should be able to carry out the plan that I had made.
"'We may quarrel about you, Clarisse,' was all I told her; and at that she laughed and clapped her hands.
"'That will be beautiful!' she said; for to be quarrelled about is a joy to all women when they are young and beautiful.
"Then I made other arrangements, and told my friend Jacques Durand that I should want him with me on that night.
"'You will render me,' I said, 'the help that circumstances suggest; but more than that I shall not tell you.'
"For a secret is not a secret any longer, when more than one man knows it. Time enough that Jacques should know my secret when the days had passed, and the night of the masked ball arrived.
"It came before the week was out, and there can be little need for me to tell you what it looked like. You may still see the same thing at any time in Paris, when the students are keeping carnival.