My lady surveyed him critically. “Du vrai, you are a very pretty young man,” she said. “N’est-ce pas, Prudence?”
“Something undersized,” amended Prudence, with her slow smile.
“Prue can only admire a mammoth, ma’am,” said Robin. His eyes ran over his sister’s large frame. “Well, perhaps she has reason.”
Thus it was that midway through the evening a slight gentleman in a black domino begged my Lady Dorling to present him to a little lady in a pink domino, seated against the wall by an austere spinster.
Lady Dorling said laughingly: “What shall I call you, sir, for indeed the mask baffles me?”
White teeth showed in a dazzling smile. “You shall say that I am l’Inconnu, madam.”
She was delighted. “Miss Pink Domino should feel Romance at hand on such an introduction. Why, it’s the little Grayson child.” She led the Black Domino up to the Pink one, and smilingly said: “My dear, may I present a partner to you for the minuet? He has no name that I can find — only l’Inconnu. See if he will tell you more.” She rustled away on the words, leaving Miss Letty looking wonderingly up at the unknown.
He stood bowing deeply before her, one hand holding a point-edged tricorne over his heart, the other laid lightly on the hilt of his dress-sword. The black domino fell all about him in silken folds; the velvet mask through which his eyes glittered strangely baffled recognition.
Miss Letty made her curtsey, still gazing into the Unknown’s face.
“Mademoiselle will bestow her hand on me for this dance?”