The golden dancer straightened up to her full height, astounded, and a bright flood of colour stained her cheeks under the mask's curved edge.
"It—it is impossible that you should know—" she began, exasperated. "How could you? Only one person knew what I was to wear to-night! I came by myself with my maid. It—it is magic! It is infernal—abominable magic——"
She checked herself, still standing very straight, the gorgeous, blossom-woven cloth-of-gold rippling; the jewels shooting light from the fillet that bound her hair.
After a silence:
"How did you know?" she asked, striving to smile through the flushed chagrin. "It is perfectly horrid of you—anyhow——"
Curiosity checked her again; she stood gazing at him in silence, striving to pierce the eye-slits of that black skin-mask—trying to interpret the expression of the mischievous mobile mouth below it—or, perhaps the malice was all in those slanting slits behind which two strange eyes sparkled steadily out at her from the shadow.
"Strelsa Leeds," he repeated, and flourished one hand in graceful emphasis as she coloured hotly again. And he saw the teeth catch at her under lip.
"It is outrageous," she declared. "Tell me instantly who you are!"
"First," he insisted, mischievously, "I claim the forfeit."
"The—the forfeit!" she faltered.