As everyone came masked, admission was, of course, only by card, after which all were conducted singly to a small room where the mask was removed and identification satisfactorily established by the Ambassador’s Secretary.

It chanced, when my turn came, that the Marquis de Vierle, himself, was in the room; and, when he saw my face, his welcome was intensely ardent.  He apologized effusively that I had been received at the regular entrance and, so, had been compelled to wait my turn for identification—­but, surely, my regrets had been noted.

I told him he was quite right—­that I had regretted, and that the apology was, really, due from me for coming, and that I had enjoyed being pushed and jostled, once again, like an ordinary mortal.  He wanted to treat me with all the deference due me and I very firmly declined.  I told him, frankly, I was there to see and enjoy and not to be seen nor to receive special attentions.  I asked him, as a particular favor, to tell no one of my presence and to permit me to remain absolutely incog.; that, for this night, I was plain Armand Dalberg and not a Royal Highness nor an Archduke.

The house was one of the largest in the Capital, standing in a park of its own, on the edge of the inner town, and had been the residence of the French Legation for a century.  It had been improved and added to, at various periods, until it had taken on about every known style of architecture.  And, as a result, there were queer passages and many unexpected recesses.  The furniture was as varied as the building; and the tapestries and pictures and frescoes were rather famous.  The grounds, however, were the main attraction; they covered twenty acres and were maintained exactly as originally laid out by a famous Italian landscape artist—­with immense trees and huge hedges and narrow walks and wonderful vistas.

The Marquise de Vierle welcomed her guests alone in one of the small reception rooms; everyone entering singly and unmasking—­she, herself, being as yet, in ordinary evening dress.  She was a very handsome woman, much younger than the Marquis, and of the very oldest French Aristocracy—­a grande dame in bearing as well as in birth.

“Your Royal Highness does us great honor,” she said, as I bowed over her hand.

I answered her in suit, and we tossed the usual number of compliments back and forth.

“Whom shall we bid join you at supper?” she asked.

“My dear Marquise,” I protested, “you have your personal party selected—­doubtless invited; and my unexpected coming must not break your arrangements.  Let me wander about, and pay no more regard to me than to your most ordinary guest.”

But she declined to excuse me; insisting that she had made no choice, except Lady Helen Radnor, who happened to be staying the night with her.  So, without being churlish, I could decline no longer.

“If your Ladyship will make the list very small, and, then, engage to give me all your smiles I shall accept with pleasure,” I said.