'What are you thinking of?' said Peggy's voice at his elbow. Peggy was often at Doll's elbow at other times besides dinner, a fact which did not escape Lady Pierpoint's maternal eye, but for which she did not reprimand Peggy, any more than for her slightly upturned nose and little upper lip, which turned up in sympathy too. But Peggy vaguely felt that on this occasion her dear 'mummy' was rather in the way, especially when the whole party assembled in the hall in their masks and dominoes, and Peggy could not sufficiently admire Doll's flame-coloured garment with a black devil outlined on the back and a hood with pointed ears. She had no eyes for Captain Charrington, the tallest man in the Guards, magnificent in crimson silk from head to foot, with crimson mask as well, or for another of Doll's companions in arms in a chessboard domino of black and white with an appalling white mask.
'Look, Peggy,' said Lady Pierpoint, 'at Mrs. Devereux. I think I have never seen any domino as pretty as her white one with little silver bees all over it.'
Mrs. Devereux protested, in a muffled manner, through the lace edge of her mask that Miss Pierpoint's and Mrs. Loftus's duplicate primrose ones edged with gold quite put her bees into the shade.
'Into a hive you mean,' said her husband, a dull young man in dove colour. 'But how are we to know Mrs. Loftus and Miss Pierpoint apart?'
'You won't know us,' said Sibyl; 'that is just the point.'
* * * * *
'There is one thing I ought to have asked you before,' said Sibyl solemnly in her married-woman voice, as the brougham in which she and Mr. Loftus had driven together drew up in the queue. 'Would you like me to dance or not?'
'Are you fond of dancing?'
'Very—at least, I mean I don't mind.'
'Then, dance by all means.'