“Then I prefer prose. Hello!”––pausing and raising his lantern, as they drew near the officer who had fallen under the observation of the fille à la cassette. “Colonel Saint-Prosper, or set me down for an ass––or Plato, which is the same thing!”
“Straws!” said the soldier, as the bard frankly lifted his mask and tilted it back over his forehead.
“Glad to see you!” continued the poet, extending his hand. “I haven’t run across you before since the night of the banquet; the début of Barnes’ company you remember? You must have left town shortly afterward. Returned this morning, of course! By the way, there’s one of your old friends here to-night.”
Saint-Prosper felt the color mount to his face, and even Straws noted the change. “Who is that?” asked the soldier, awkwardly.
“Mrs. Service––Miss Duran that was––now one of our most dashing––I should say, charitable, ladies. Plenty of men at Service’s church now. She’s 480 dressed in Watteau-fashion to-night, so if you see any one skipping around, looking as though she had just stepped from the Embarkation for the Island of Venus, set her down for the minister’s pretty wife!”
“And the minister?” asked Saint-Prosper, mechanically.
“He brought her; he compromised on a Roundhead costume, himself! But we must be off. Au revoir; don’t be backward; the ladies are all military-mad. It may be a field of arms”––casting his glance over the assemblage of fashionably dressed ladies, with a quizzical smile––“but not hostile arms! Come, Celestina––Nydia, I mean!”
And Straws’ arm stole about the waist of his companion, as Saint-Prosper watched them disappearing in the throng of dancers. It was Celestina’s first ball, and after her long training at the Castiglione institute, she danced divinely. Evidently, too, she was reconciled to the warden’s edict, denying her the freedom of the ball-room, for she showed no disposition to escape from Straws’ watchful care. On the contrary, though her glance wandered to the wonders around her, they quickly returned to the philosopher with the lamp, as though she courted the restraint to which she was subjected. Something like a pang shot through the soldier’s breast as he followed the pair with his gaze; he seemed looking backward into a world of youth and pleasure, passed beyond recall.
“It is useless to deny it! I knew you when I first saw you!” exclaimed a familiar voice near by, and 481 turning around sharply, the officer observed approaching a masked lady, graceful of figure and lacking nothing in the numerical strength of her escort. It was to her that these words were addressed by an agile man of medium stature who had apparently penetrated her disguise. The lady, who would have attracted attention anywhere by her bearing, wore a pardessus of white gauze, fitting close and bordered with a silver band; the sleeves, short; the skirt of white gauze and very ample, as the fashion of the day required; the feet shod in small white silk “bottines”; the hair in bands, ornamented with wild poppies. Altogether this costume was described by Phazma as “ravishing, the gown adorning the lady, and the lady the gown, her graces set forth against the sheen of voluminous satin folds, like those of some portrait by Sir Joshua or Gainsborough.”
“How could you expect any one not to know you?” continued the speaker, as this little coterie drew near, their masks a pretext for mystery. “You may impersonate, but you can not deceive.”