Again she read the invitation, recalling Lady Blythebury’s gay words when last they had talked the matter over.

“If only Una could come without the lion for once!” she had said.

And she herself had almost echoed the wish.  Sir Roland always spoilt everything.

Well!—­She took up her pen.  She supposed she must refuse.  A moment it hovered above the paper.  Then, very slowly, it descended and began to write.

* * *

The chatter of many voices and the rhythm of dancing feet, the strains of a string-band in the distance, and, piercing all, the clear, high notes of a flute, filled the spring night with wonderful sound.  Lady Blythebury had turned her husband’s house into a fairy palace of delight.  She stood in the doorway of the ballroom, her florid face beaming above her Elizabethan ruffles, looking in upon the gay and ever-shifting scene which she had called into being.

“I feel as if I had stepped into an Arabian Night,” she laughed to one of her guests, who stood beside her.  He was dressed as a court jester, and carried a wand which he flourished dramatically.  He wore a close-fitting black mask.

“There is certainly magic abroad,” he declared, in a rich, Irish brogue that Lady Blythebury smiled to hear.  For she also was Irish to the backbone.

“You know something of the art yourself, Captain Sullivan?” she asked.

She knew the man for a friend of her husband’s.  He was more or less disreputable, she believed, but he was none the less welcome on that account.  It was just such men as he who knew how to make things a success.  She relied upon the disreputable more than she would have admitted.

“Egad, I’m no novice in most things!” declared the court jester, waving his wand bombastically.  “But it’s the magic of a pretty woman that I’m after at the present moment.  These masks, Lady Blythebury, are uncommon inconvenient.  It’s yourself that knows better than to wear one.  Sure, beauty should never go veiled.”

Lady Blythebury laughed indulgently.  Though she knew it for what it was, the fellow’s blarney was good to hear.

“Ah, go and dance!” she said.  “I’ve heard all that before.  It never means anything.  Go and dance with the little lady over there in the pink domino!  I give you my word that she is pretty.  Her name is Una, but she is minus the lion on this occasion.  I shall tell you no more than that.”

“Egad!  It’s more than enough!” said the court jester, as he bowed and moved away.

The lady indicated stood alone in the curtained embrasure of a bay-window.  She was watching the dancers with an absorbed air, and did not notice his approach.

He drew near, walking with a free swagger in time to the haunting waltz-music.  Reaching her, he stopped and executed a sweeping bow, his hand upon his heart.

“May I have the pleasure—­”

She looked up with a start.  Her eyes shone through her mask with a momentary irresolution as she bent in response to his bow.