“Why, because, Simplicity, both of them are men, while the little Monk on his arm is a lady, as you can see, and so is the masque that has the arm of the Indian Queen; look at their little hands.”

In another part of the room the four were greeted with, “Ha, ha, ha! well, that is magnificent!  But see that Huguenotte Girl on the Indian Queen’s arm!  Isn’t that fine!  Ha, ha! she carries a little trunk.  She is a Fille a la Cassette!”

Two partners in a cotillion were speaking in an undertone, behind a fan.

“And you think you know who it is?” asked one.

“Know?” replied the other.  “Do I know I have a head on my shoulders?  If that Dragoon is not our cousin Honore Grandissime—­well—­”

“Honore in mask? he is too sober-sided to do such a thing.”

“I tell you it is he!  Listen.  Yesterday I heard Doctor Charlie Keene begging him to go, and telling him there were two ladies, strangers, newly arrived in the city, who would be there, and whom he wished him to meet.  Depend upon it the Dragoon is Honore, Lufki-Humma is Charlie Keene, and the Monk and the Huguenotte are those two ladies.”

But all this is an outside view; let us draw nearer and see what chance may discover to us behind those four masks.

An hour has passed by.  The dance goes on; hearts are beating, wit is flashing, eyes encounter eyes with the leveled lances of their beams, merriment and joy and sudden bright surprises thrill the breast, voices are throwing off disguise, and beauty’s coy ear is bending with a venturesome docility; here love is baffled, there deceived, yonder takes prisoners and here surrenders.  The very air seems to breathe, to sigh, to laugh, while the musicians, with disheveled locks, streaming brows and furious bows, strike, draw, drive, scatter from the anguished violins a never-ending rout of screaming harmonies.  But the Monk and the Huguenotte are not on the floor.  They are sitting where they have been left by their two companions, in one of the boxes of the theater, looking out upon the unwearied whirl and flash of gauze and light and color.

“Oh, cherie, cherie!” murmured the little lady in the Monk’s disguise to her quieter companion, and speaking in the soft dialect of old Louisiana, “now you get a good idea of heaven!”

The Fille a la Cassette replied with a sudden turn of her masked face and a murmur of surprise and protest against this impiety.  A low, merry laugh came out of the Monk’s cowl, and the Huguenotte let her form sink a little in her chair with a gentle sigh.

“Ah, for shame, tired!” softly laughed the other; then suddenly, with her eyes fixed across the room, she seized her companion’s hand and pressed it tightly.  “Do you not see it?” she whispered eagerly, “just by the door—­the casque with the heron feathers.  Ah, Clotilde, I cannot believe he is one of those Grandissimes!”

“Well,” replied the Huguenotte, “Doctor Keene says he is not.”