Peggy whirled around and holding out both hands, she kissed her cousin impulsively as she exclaimed: “Oh, I’m so glad that you could come. It’s just ages since I saw you last, and ever so many things have happened. Tomorrow morning we’ll have a talkfast and gossip for hours, but do tell me who is the room-mate that you asked if you might bring. I just saw her a minute as you came in, but I thought that she was very beautiful, dark like a Spanish of French girl, isn’t she?” Then, without waiting for an answer, impetuous Peggy hurried on as a new thought presented itself.
“Phyllis you never could guess who is coming tonight. One of our boy cousins whom we haven’t seen in just ever so long, but there, I ought not to be calling him a boy, he’s so big and good-looking? His mother is staying with us and she talks about her wonderful son all of the time. She plans to have him make a most eligible marriage, but he doesn’t seem to care for girls at all. Oh, here comes your friend! Isn’t that gypsy costume fascinating?”
Nan Barrington was presented to the little hostess and to her mother, who appeared at that moment to assist in receiving, and then the guests began to arrive.
Phyllis and Nan retreated to a seat beneath a bank of palms and not far from the hidden musicians. They had on their masks and Nan, who had never before attended a real party of any kind, was interested in all that she saw. Suddenly she caught her friend’s hand as she said softly, “Phyllis, will you look at the young man who is just entering! Who do you suppose he is?”
“Why, he has on a gypsy costume! That’s rather strange, isn’t it? Wouldn’t it be amusing, Nan, if he should ask you to dance? There are to be no personal introductions, you know. Only close friends of Aunt Lucy’s and Peg’s are invited, and so, of course, that in itself is sufficient introduction.”
While Phyllis had been talking a youth dressed as a knight had approached and asked her to join the promenade with him, and so, for a moment Nan was left alone. She did not mind and she sat smiling as she thought how like a play it all was when suddenly she heard someone saying, “Lady Gypsy, will you promenade with me?”
Nan sprang to her feet and held out both hands impulsively:
“Robert!” she said. “I thought of you the moment that I saw that costume but it isn’t the one that you wore so long ago and I never dreamed that it could be you, but your voice—I’m not mistaken in it, am I?”
For answer the lad tore off his mask and looked down at the girl with an expression of radiant joy.
“Lady Red Bird,” the lad exclaimed as he led her back of the sheltering palms, “for three years I have tried and tried to find you. Did you think that I had broken the promise that I made to you high on the mountain? Indeed I have not, and I never will break it. Please remove your mask. I want to know what my sister-comrade looks like after all these years.”