“At least the game then is fair,” said I, disappointed.  “But I promise you that some time I shall see you face to face, and without masks.  To-morrow—­”

“Tut, tut!” she reproved.  “There is no to-morrow!”

I looked down on her as I stood, and a certain madness of youth seized hold upon me.  I knew that when she rose she would be just tall enough; that she would be round, full, perfect woman in every line of her figure; that her hair would be some sort of dark brown in the daylight; that her eyes would also be of some sort of darkness, I knew not what, for I could not see them fully through the domino.  I could see the hair piled back from the nape of as lovely a neck as ever caught a kiss.  I could see at the edge of the mask that her ear was small and close to the head; could see that her nose must be straight, and that it sprang from the brow strongly, with no weak indentation.  The sweep of a strong, clean chin was not to be disguised, and at the edge of the mask I caught now and then the gleam of white, even teeth, and the mocking smile of red, strongly curved lips, hid by her fan at the very moment when I was about to fix them in my memory, so that I might see them again and know.  I suspect she hid a smile, but her eyes looked up at me grandly and darkly.  Nineteen, perhaps twenty, I considered her age to be; gentle, and yet strong, with character and yet with tenderness, I made estimate that she must be; and that she had more brains than to be merely a lay figure I held sure, because there was something, that indefinable magnetism, what you like to call it, which is not to be denied, which assured me that here indeed was a woman not lightly to accept, nor lightly to be forgotten.  Ah, now I was seized and swept on in a swift madness.  Still the music sang on.

“My hostess said it would be a lottery to-night in this Row of Mystery,” I went on, “but I do not find it so.”

“All life is lottery,” she said in answer.

“And lotteries are lawful when one wins the capital prize.  One stretches out his hand in the dark.  But some one must win.  I win now.  The game of masks is a fine one.  I am vastly pleased with it.  Some day I shall see you without any mask.  Come.  We must dance.  I could talk better if we were more alone.”

As I live, she rose and put her hand upon my arm with no further argument; why, I cannot say, perhaps because I had allowed no other man to stand thus near her.

We stepped out upon the crowded floor.  I was swept away by it all, by the waltz, by the stars above, by the moon, by the breath of women and the scent of their hair, and the perfume of roses, by the passion of living, by youth, youth!  Ah, God! ah, God!—­I say to you, it was sweet.  Whatever life brings to us of age and sorrow, let us remember our youth, and say it was worth the while.  Had I never lived but that one night, it had been worth while.

She danced as she stood, with the grace of a perfect young creature, and the ease of a perfect culture as well.  I was of no mind to look further.  If this was not Ellen, then there was no Ellen there for me!