“Dear Lord Usk,—Félicia is real sorry to disappoint you, but she thinks it her duty not to miss such an excellent opportunity of seeing the Carnival. I wish we could have you come with us, but our carriage is full.—Yours truly,
Sadie van Zyl.”
Usk crushed the note angrily in his hand when he had glanced at it. Of course it might mean no more than that Félicia was to view the Carnival procession from a window, but he felt almost certain that she would don fancy dress and join in all the gaiety that offered itself. And who was to occupy the fourth seat in the carriage? Only one answer suggested itself—King Michael. Usk fought against the conviction in vain. At last he stood up, and spoke hurriedly to Nicholson, who had been watching him curiously.
“I’m off. I shall go and see what all the foolery is like, anyhow.”
“Disappointed of your tea-party?” laughed the invalid, his worn face elfish, almost malicious. “But you can’t go down into the thick of the fun in those things. You’ll be mobbed. Look here, you wear the togs I ordered for myself—we’re about the same height. Ring for Jenkins, and he’ll bring them. I was going as the typical Englishman of French caricature. Now then, there you are. Don’t forget the whiskers, mind.”
“They aren’t the right colour for me,” said Usk, tossing down the long Dundreary whiskers which had been selected to match Nicholson’s sandy hair. “I’m sure I shall look enough of an ass without them. Where in the world did you get such checks?”
“Horse-blanket,” responded Nicholson, breathlessly but proudly. “Tasty, isn’t it? I thought when I chose it I should make a sensation, but now I know what the French believe about us, I’m certain it will fall flat. People will only say, ‘That English fellow has no business to come in his ordinary clothes.’”
“Ordinary!” gasped Usk, from the adjoining room, where he was arraying himself rapidly in the scarlet and yellow checked knickerbockers, the orange tawny Norfolk jacket, the golf-stockings combining all the colours of the rainbow, and the aggressive sun-helmet, surrounded by a white puggaree striped with red and blue, which Nicholson considered would enable the French populace to identify the typical Englishman so dear to their hearts. Football boots and an alpenstock completed the costume, and when Usk had donned the orthodox velvet mask, Nicholson lay back upon his pillows, and laughed and coughed until the tears ran down his cheeks.
“I wouldn’t have missed it for anything,” he gasped. “I shouldn’t have realised the effect half as well on myself. You might have stepped out of ‘Le Rire,’ except for your modest air of uneasiness. Swagger a bit, and grind your teeth. Walk as if the whole earth belonged to you. And do put on the whiskers. They’ll look all the funnier with your dark moustache.”
But this last sacrifice to appearances Usk declined to make, and after Nicholson had reminded him to provide himself with a good bag of confetti and a tin scoop, he crept downstairs, hoping fervently not to meet any one he knew, and went out by the side door of the hotel, whence he found his way easily to the Old Town and into the main stream of gaiety. His sole idea had been to look for Félicia, to convince himself that she had deliberately broken her promise to him, or perhaps to have the delight of finding that Mrs van Zyl and Maimie were joining in the fun without her. But once in the whirling, ever-changing throng, he soon recognised that there was little hope of finding any one. Strangers accosted him, rallied him on his loneliness, invited him to join them. Confetti flew about in showers, small hard bouquets hurtled through the air from the decorated carriages as they passed, and the phantasmagoria of sound and colour fleeted and shifted every moment. Overhead, against the glowing blue of the sky, were strings of fluttering flags and wreaths of evergreen; a little lower, windows and shop-fronts were garlanded and decked with bright-hued stuffs; the lofty cars which lurched past vied with one another in the richness of their colour-schemes and the bizarrerie of their mechanical devices; small foot-soldiers and dragoons on prancing steeds were pressed hither and thither in valiant attempts to keep a line. There were people in the road, people on the pavement, people in every door and window, people on the roofs. Bands blared, maskers hissed, cackled, hooted, neighed, yelled; imperious policemen forced their way along with the word “circulez” on their lips, although to obey was obviously impossible. People entangled each other in long paper streamers, banged each other with bladders, knocked off each other’s headgear, poked confetti down each other’s collars, all in high good-humour, and amid shrieks of laughter. Dominos of every possible colour and shade of colour, Pierrots and Pierrettes of every degree of inanity, debased national and historical costumes of every country and every era, eddied round Usk, but he tried in vain to distinguish any figure that he knew. Anxious and troubled as he was, he had soon had enough of the scene, but he kept his temper, and flung his confetti with the best, until they were exhausted. By this time he had managed to traverse almost the entire route of the procession, and he turned to retrace his steps. As he did so, he noticed a band of men with false noses, who seemed to be chaffing some one in their midst. As Usk was carried close to them by the crowd, he saw that the centre of attraction was a girl in German peasant costume. Her hair hung in two thick plaits below her waist, and in her short skirts she looked little more than a child. Her stiff little round cap had been tweaked off by one of the group surrounding her, two more had possessed themselves of the ribbons from her hair, and were announcing that they would wear them next their hearts for ever after, and another had pulled the knitting from her apron-pocket and was drawing out the pins. The girl herself was clinging with both hands to her mask, in evident though unnecessary terror that it would be the next thing torn from her, and gazing round like a hunted hare for a way of escape. With an inarticulate exclamation, Usk pushed his way into the circle. Whoever the girl might be, her terror and distress were obvious, and he could not see her tormented by this rabble. To his utter astonishment, as soon as her eyes fell on him, she darted forward and seized his arm.