Overnight, it seemed, all weights had dropped from his shoulders. On the score of the Midnight Masquer, he was vastly relieved; all that was over and forgotten. Financially, he had achieved what was nothing less than a masterly triumph. In a business way, he was free of all ties and able to look forward to decisive action on his own behalf and that of a partner in whom he could feel a perfect reliance.
Consequently, he began really to enjoy Mardi Gras for the first time, and plunged into the eddying crowds in a free and light-hearted manner which had not been his for years.
It was the moment for the carnival spirit to seize on him, and seize him it did. With a boyish abandon he tramped the streets merrily, exchanging jests and confetti, shoves and bladder-blows, laughs and kisses. Madness and reckless gaiety were in the very air, and Gramont drank deep of these youthful tonics. When at last he wandered home to his pension, he was footsore, weary, disarranged, and touseled—and very happy. The wine of human comradeship is a good wine.
That evening the Comus ball, the most exclusive revel of the most exclusive aristocracy of the southland, crowded the edifice in which it was held to capacity. Here evening dress was prescribed for all the guests. The Krewe of Comus alone were masked and costumed, in grotesque and magnificent costumes which had been in the making for months. The Krewe is to the South what the Bohemian Club is to the western coast, with the added enhancement of mystery.
Despite the revels of the Krewe, however—despite the glittering jewels, the barbaric costumes, the music, the excitement—an indefinable air of regret, almost of sadness, pervaded the entire gathering. This feeling was something to be sensed, rather than observed definitely. Some said, afterward, that it was a premonition of the terrible event that was to happen this night. Wrong! It was because, for the first time in many generations, the Comus ball was held in one of the newer public buildings instead of in its accustomed place. Everyone was speaking of it. Even Maillard the banker, that cold man of dollars, spoke uneasily of it when Gramont encountered him in the smoking room.
"It doesn't seem like Comus," said Maillard, with a vexed frown. "And to think that we had just finished redecorating the Opera House when it was burned down! Comus will never be the same again."
"I didn't know you could feel such emotion for a ruined building, Maillard," said Gramont, lightly. The banker shrugged a trifle.
"Emotion? No. Regret! None of us, who has been brought up in the traditions of the city but regarded the French Opera House as the centre of all our storied life. You can't understand it, Gramont; no outsider can. By the way, you haven't seen Bob? He's in costume, but he might have spoken to you——"
Gramont answered in the negative, with a slight surprise at the question.
It was not long before he came to comprehend more fully just what the loss of the old French Opera House meant to the assembly. He heard comparisons made on every hand, regretful allusions, sighs for the days that were no more.