nd he's given me permission to do just as I choose," said Kitty.
"So it's got to be a success--"

"And she's trying to say," interrupted Hayden, "that it couldn't possibly
be a success without you."

"Of course I am," agreed Kitty, "only I should have put it less bluntly."

"Wait! I have an inspiration." Ydo thought a moment. "I will not come to
the dinner. We can make it much more effective than that. Ah, listen!"
waving her hands to quell their protests. "Let me appear, later in the
evening, in my professional capacity and tell the past, present and
future of your guests. Yes, I will come in mask and mantilla, The Veiled
Mariposa," with a dramatic gesture, a quick twinkle of the eyes toward
Hayden. "I assure you, it will be far more interesting so."

[Illustration]

"There is really no doubt about that," said Kitty thoughtfully, and
together they silenced Robert's eloquent plea that the dinner would fall
flat unless Ydo was one of the guests.

"It is settled, and I must go." The Mariposa spoke decisively. "I shall
go home and make Eunice play for me, and perhaps I shall dance off some
of my restlessness."

"Oh, dance for us," begged Kitty. "I will play for you, and you see that
the piano is so placed that I can watch you at the same time. What shall
I play? Some Spanish dances?"

Ydo, full of the spirit of the thing, considered. "I think I will show
you a pretty little dance I learned down in South America."

"South America!" Hayden started as if he had received an electric shock.

Perhaps a heightened color glowed on Mademoiselle Mariposa's cheek; but
she gave no further sign of perturbation. "Yes," she answered carelessly,
"I have lived there, in one place or another. Any one of those Spanish
dances will do, Mrs. Hampton. Watch my steps. They are peculiar and very
pretty."

As she stood there swaying like a flower in a breeze, it was, to Hayden's
fancy, as if he had never seen color before. Kitty in her pinks and blues
was a gay little figure; her drawing-room was a rich and sumptuously
decorated apartment, but under the spell of the Mariposa's "woven paces
and weaving hands," Mrs. Hampton appeared a mere Dresden statuette, the
tapestried and frescoed walls became a pale and evanescent background,
and Ydo alone, dancing, focused in herself all light and beauty; nay, she
herself was the pride of life, the rhythm of motion, the glory of color.

On and on she danced and Hayden, watching, dreamed dreams and