within.

Hillard gathered in his courage, opened the door and stepped inside. A
single lamp in a far corner drew his glance, which roved a moment later.
On a divan near this lamp sat a woman in black. Only a patch of white
throat could be seen, for her shoulders were not bare and her arms only
to the elbows. Her back was turned squarely. He could see nothing of her
face. But what a head! He caught his breath. It glowed like a
copper-beech in the sunshine. What was it? There was something,
something he could not see.

"Madame?" he faltered. He had had a gallant Italian phrase to turn for
her benefit. He spoke English instead, and not very firmly.

The woman turned. Hillard took a step backward and blundered against a
pedestal.

She was masked!

CHAPTER V

THE MASK

Masked! Only her mouth and chin were visible, and several little pieces
of court-plaster effectually disguised these. There _was_ a mystery. He
to come blindfolded and she to wear a mask! Extraordinary! There was
something more than a jest: she really did not wish to be known, and the
reason lay far back of all this, beyond his grasp. He stood there
dumfounded. She rose. The movement was elegant.

"And this," she said ironically, "is the gentleman who leaned out of the
window?"

He brought all his faculties together, for he knew that he would need
them in this encounter. "Supposing I had fallen out of it? Well, it
could not have mattered. I should not have been more at your feet than I
am now." This was very good, considering how dry his tongue was.

"If you had fallen out? I had not thought of that. A modern Ulysses,
house-broken, and an itinerant siren! You had been wise to have stuffed
your ears that night."

"My mythology is rusty. And I much prefer Penelope. She interests me
vastly more than the ancient prize-fighter."

"But sit down, Mr. Hillard, sit down." The lady with the mask motioned
him to a chair directly under the light. She wished to study his face
while she talked.

Hillard reached the chair successfully enough, but he never could
recollect how. He sat down as a bashful man sits down in a crowded
ball-room, with his knees drawn in tightly and his feet at sympathetic
angles. He knew that she would have the best of him in this engagement.
All the bright things to say would come to him after he had gone home.
It was far easier to write letters. That mask! One might as well
converse with the Sphinx. His face was hers to s