A woman, flexible of form, slender, yet rhythmic of strength in every movement, now pausing with this group, now scanning that, urged a restless and devious course among the revellers.  Men recognized the furs, and marvelled,—­men who should have served upon the door committee; but they were not prone to speech.  Not so with the women.  They had better eyes for the lines of figure and tricks of carriage, and they knew this form to be one with which they were unfamiliar; likewise the furs.  Mrs. McFee, emerging from the supper-room where all was in readiness, caught one flash of the blazing, questing eyes through the silken mask-slits, and received a start.  She tried to recollect where she had seen the like, and a vivid picture was recalled of a certain proud and rebellious sinner whom she had once encountered on a fruitless errand for the Lord.

So it was that the good woman took the trail in hot and righteous wrath, a trail which brought her ultimately into the company of Mrs. Eppingwell and Floyd Vanderlip.  Mrs. Eppingwell had just found the opportunity to talk with the man.  She had determined, now that Flossie was so near at hand, to proceed directly to the point, and an incisive little ethical discourse was titillating on the end of her tongue, when the couple became three.  She noted, and pleasurably, the faintly foreign accent of the “Beg pardon” with which the furred woman prefaced her immediate appropriation of Floyd Vanderlip; and she courteously bowed her permission for them to draw a little apart.

Then it was that Mrs. McFee’s righteous hand descended, and accompanying it in its descent was a black mask torn from a startled woman.  A wonderful face and brilliant eyes were exposed to the quiet curiosity of those who looked that way, and they were everybody.  Floyd Vanderlip was rather confused.  The situation demanded instant action on the part of a man who was not beyond his depth, while he hardly knew where he was.  He stared helplessly about him.  Mrs. Eppingwell was perplexed.  She could not comprehend.  An explanation was forthcoming, somewhere, and Mrs. McFee was equal to it.

“Mrs. Eppingwell,” and her Celtic voice rose shrilly, “it is with great pleasure I make you acquainted with Freda Moloof, Miss Freda Moloof, as I understand.”

Freda involuntarily turned.  With her own face bared, she felt as in a dream, naked, upon her turned the clothed features and gleaming eyes of the masked circle.  It seemed, almost, as though a hungry wolf-pack girdled her, ready to drag her down.  It might chance that some felt pity for her, she thought, and at the thought, hardened.  She would by far prefer their scorn.  Strong of heart was she, this woman, and though she had hunted the prey into the midst of the pack, Mrs. Eppingwell or no Mrs. Eppingwell, she could not forego the kill.