ock strikes the midnight
hour," he said mysteriously.

"I shall be there to deliver the supreme interrogation," I replied.

"It is well." He drifted away like a stately ship.

Delightful foolery! I saw the Jesuit, and moved toward him.

"Disciple of Loyola, hast thou the ten of hearts?"

"My hearts number nine, for I have lost one to the gay Columbine."

"I breathe! Thou art not he whom I seek."

We separated. I was mortally glad that Columbine had made a mistake.

The women always seek the monk at a masquerade; they want absolution
for the follies they are about to commit. A demure Quakeress touched
my sleeve in passing.

"Tell me, grave monk, why did you seek the monastery?"

"My wife fell in love with me,"--gloomily.

"Then you have a skeleton in the clothes-press?"

"Do I look like a man who owned such a thing as a clothes-press, much
less so fashionable a thing as a family skeleton?"

"Then what do you here?"

"I am mingling with fools as a penance."

A fool caught me by the sleeve and batted me gaily over the head with a
bladder.

"Merry come up, why am I a fool?"

"It is the fashion," was my answer. This was like to gain me the
reputation of being a wit. I must walk carefully, or these thoughtless
ones would begin to suspect there was an impostor among them.

"Aha!" There was mine ancient friend Julius. "Hail Caesar!"

He stopped.

"Shall I beware the Ides of March?" I asked jovially.

"Nay, my good Cassius; rather beware of the ten of hearts," said Caesar
in hollow tones, and he was gone.

The ten of hearts again! Hang the card! And then with a sigh of
relief I recollected that in all probability he, like Columbine, had
heard me call out the card to Hamilton. Still, the popularity of the
card was very disquieting. I wished it had been seven or five; there's
luck in odd numbers. . . . A Blue Domino! My heart leaped, and I
thought of the little ticket in my waistcoat pocket. A Blue Domino!
If, by chance, there should be a connection between her and the ticket!

She was sitting all alone in a corner near-by, partly screened by a pot
of orange-trees. I crossed over and sat down by her side. This might
prove an adventure worth while.

"What a beautiful night it is!" I said.

She turned, and I caught sight of a wisp of golden hair.

"That is very original," said she. "Who in the world would have
thought of passing comments on the weather at a masque! Prior to this
m