g to Lady Dulminster to-night? Ah, my dear,
the play must go on; we mustn't spoil the fun with sour faces,
masks, and dominos except now and then! Believe me, _cherie_,
underneath it all we are much the same--very sad people. Only it
wouldn't do to admit it. Life would be too terrible then. So we
dance on and make believe we enjoy it, and by-and-by, if we play
hard enough, we do believe it for a minute or two. From one point of
view, you know, it is rather amusing."

Mary looked up at last; her eyes, shining out of the white face,
seemed to have grown suddenly very large and bright.

"Does it go on always, Aunt Marcelle?" she asked with a child's
directness.

"Always!" said Lady Garnett promptly. "Only there are interludes,
and then sometimes one guest steals away with his bosom friend into
a corner, and they look under each other's masks. But it isn't a
nice sight, and it mustn't happen very often, else they wouldn't be
back in their places when the music began. Ah, my child!" she broke
off suddenly, "I am talking nonsense to amuse you, and making you
sadder all the time. But you know I think nobody was ever consoled
by consolations unless it were the consoler."

She drew the girl's blank face towards her, clasped the smooth brown
head against her breast with two bird-like hands on which the
diamonds glittered.

"Cry, my dear!" she said at last; "that is the best of being
young--that gift of tears. When one is old one laughs instead; but
ah, _mon Dieu_! it is a queer kind of laughter."

They sat locked together in silence until the room was quite dark,
lit only by the vague lamplight which shone in through the fine lace
curtains from the street. Then Mary rose and played a little, very
softly, in the darkness, morsels of Chopin, until the footman came
in with a bright lamp, announcing that dinner was on the table. And
Charles Sylvester had not arrived.

He atoned for this breach of his habit, however, on the morrow by
making an early call upon the two ladies, whom he found alone,
immediately after luncheon. He was very clean shaven, very carefully
dressed, and with his closely buttoned frock-coat and his
irreproachable hat, which he held ponderously in his hand during his
protracted visit, he had the air of having come immediately from
church.

Lady Garnett taxed him with this occupation presently, suppressing
her further thought that he looked still more like an aspirant to
matrimony, and Charles admitted