They looked after him until he was lost to view in the throngs beyond, then the girl slowly reseated herself, eyes again fixed on the water, hands clasped tightly upon her knee, and Duane found a place at her elbow.  So they began a duet of silence.

The little wavelets came dancing shoreward out of the darkness, breaking with a thin, splashing sound against the shale at their feet.  Somewhere in the night a restless heron croaked and croaked among the willows.

“Well, little girl?” he asked at last.

“Well?” she inquired, with a calmness that did not mislead him.

“I couldn’t come to you after the third dance,” he said.

“Why?”

He evaded the question:  “When I came back to the glade the dancing was already over; so I got Kathleen and Naida to save a table.”

“Where had you been all the while?”

“If you really wish to know,” he said pleasantly, “I was talking to Jack Dysart on some rather important matters.  I did not realise how the time went.”

She sat mute, head lowered, staring out across the dark water.  Presently he laid one hand over hers, and she straightened up with a tiny shock, turned and looked him full in the eyes.

“I’ll tell you why you failed me—­failed to keep the first appointment I ever asked of you.  It was because you were so preoccupied with a mask in flame colour.”

He thought a moment: 

“Did you believe you saw me with somebody in a vermilion costume?”

“Yes; I did see you.  It was too late for me to retire without attracting your attention.  I was not a willing eavesdropper.”

“Who was the girl you thought you saw me with?”

“Sylvia Quest.  She unmasked.  There is no mistake.”

So he was obliged to lie, after all.

“It must have been Dysart you saw.  His costume is very like mine, you know——­”

“Does Jack Dysart stand for minutes holding Sylvia’s hands—­and is she accustomed to place her hands on his shoulders, as though expecting to be kissed?  And does he kiss her?”

So he had to lie again:  “No, of course not,” he said, smiling.  “So it could not have been Dysart.”

“There are only two costumes like yours and Mr. Dysart’s.  Do you wish me to believe that Sylvia is common and depraved enough to put her arms around the neck of a man who is married?”

There was no other way:  “No,” he said, “Sylvia isn’t that sort, of course.”

“It was either Mr. Dysart or you.”

He said nothing.

“Then it was you!” in hot contempt.

Still he said nothing.

“Was it?” with a break in her voice.

“Men can’t admit things of that kind,” he managed to say.

The angry colour surged up to her cheeks, the angry tears started, but her quivering lips were not under command and she could only stare at him through the blur of grief, while her white hands clinched and relaxed, and her fast-beating heart seemed to be driving the very breath from her body.