CHAPTER V
THE MASK
Masked! Only her mouth and chin were visible, and several little pieces of court-plaster effectually disguised these. There was a mystery. He to come blindfolded and she to wear a mask! Extraordinary! There was something more than a jest: she really did not wish to be known, and the reason lay far back of all this, beyond his grasp. He stood there dumfounded. She rose. The movement was elegant.
"And this," she said ironically, "is the gentleman who leaned out of the window?"
He brought all his faculties together, for he knew that he would need them in this encounter. "Supposing I had fallen out of it? Well, it could not have mattered. I should not have been more at your feet than I am now." This was very good, considering how dry his tongue was.
"If you had fallen out? I had not thought of that. A modern Ulysses, house-broken, and an itinerant siren! You had been wise to have stuffed your ears that night."
"My mythology is rusty. And I much prefer Penelope. She interests me vastly more than the ancient prize-fighter."
"But sit down, Mr. Hillard, sit down." The lady with the mask motioned him to a chair directly under the light. She wished to study his face while she talked.
Hillard reached the chair successfully enough, but he never could recollect how. He sat down as a bashful man sits down in a crowded ball-room, with his knees drawn in tightly and his feet at sympathetic angles. He knew that she would have the best of him in this engagement. All the bright things to say would come to him after he had gone home. It was far easier to write letters. That mask! One might as well converse with the Sphinx. His face was hers to study; her emotions would be wholly her own.
Presently she laughed with malice.