"Did you not lose your wager?"
She nodded reluctantly, searching the disguised features before her in vain for a clew to his identity. Then, a trifle uneasily:
"Yes, of course I lost my wager. But—I did not clearly understand what you meant by an hour out of my life."
"It is to be an hour at my disposal," he explained with another grotesque bow. "I think that was the wager?"
"Y-yes."
"Unless," he remarked carelessly, "you desire the—ah—privilege and indisputable prerogative of your delightful sex."
"The privilege of my sex? What is that?" she asked, dangerously polite.
"Why, to change your divine mind—repudiate the obligation——"
"Harlequin!"
"Madame?" with an elaborate and wriggling bow.