Within an hour after they reached the ball Ethel saw Lord Chester in his character of King Arthur of Ye Table Round in close converse with a masked princess whom she knew as Precious. The pair were sitting a little apart from the crowd in a secluded flowery alcove, and the thought instantly rushed over Ethel that her sister had played her false, and confided to her lover the secret of her mask. "It is a cunning trick to enjoy each other's society," she muttered angrily, and her heart leaped to suffocation under the plain gray serge gown with its long, straight folds, and the rosary hanging down by her side.
She was standing alone for a moment in the conservatory door, and the low, muttered words reached the ears of a knight just behind her who had hovered unobserved for some time in her vicinity. At her angry heart-cry and the heavy sigh that breathed over her lips, the knight's eyes flashed beneath his mask, while his lips curled in a diabolical smile. Moving close to her ear he whispered gallantly:
"Clouds often hide the stars, but the white cap of the nun cannot obscure the brilliancy of Miss Winans, the star of Lord Chester's heart."
Was there a sneer in the low voice? Ethel looked around with a start, and there was the knight at her elbow, with a form and voice that seemed entirely strange. Yet he had recognized her instantly, so he must be one of her friends.
But before she could speak he continued:
"Yet your choice of a costume surprises me. Miss Winans is not one to wear a penitential mood or garb. She is of the earth earthy, and must feel her heart thrill with jealous rage beneath even the sacred garb of the nun."
"Who are you that can know Miss Winans so well?" she asked, with blended anger and surprise, and his low-breathed answer was startling:
"I am one on whose fiat hangs the future of Miss Winans for good or ill!"
Ethel felt a strange thrill of repulsion run over her frame, and cresting her head with a haughty movement unbefitting her convent garb she exclaimed sternly: