"I also received some sweet flattery intended for the pretty little
Puritan maiden, and learned some bitter truths about myself," answered
Sybil.
"How hollow your voice is, Sybil! Bosh! who cares for such
double-dealing wretches, who flatter us before our faces and abuse us
behind our backs?" exclaimed Beatrix, as she quickly finished her
Puritan toilet, and announced herself ready.
Sybil was also dressed, and they went down stairs and entered the
drawing-room together.
The last quadrille before supper was over, the supper-rooms were thrown
open, and the company were marching in.
Captain Pendleton hastened to meet Sybil, and another gentleman offered
his arm to Beatrix, and thus escorted, they fell in the line of march
with others.
As each couple passed into the supper-room, they took off their masks,
and handed them to attendants, placed for that purpose, to the right and
left of the door. Thus, when the company filled the rooms, every face
was shown.
There were the usual surprises, the usual gay recognitions.
Among the rest, "Harold the Saxon" and "Edith the Fair" stood confessed
as Mr. Berners and Mrs. Blondelle, and much silent surprise as well as
much whispered suspicion was the result.
"Is it possible?" muttered one. "I took them for a pair of lovers, they
were so much together."
"I thought they were a newly married pair, who took advantage of their
masks to be more together than etiquette allows," murmured a second.
"I think it was very improper; don't you?" inquired a third.
"Improper! It was disgraceful," indignantly answered a fourth, who was
no other than Beatrix Pendleton, who now completely understood why it
was that Sybil Berners wished to change dresses with her, and also how
it was that Sybil's voice was so hollow, as she spoke in the
bed-chamber. "She wished to put on my dress that she might watch them
unsuspected, and she was right. She detected them in their sinful
trifling, and she was wretched," said Beatrix to herself. And she looked
around to catch a glimpse of Sybil's face. Sybil was sitting too near
her to be seen. Sybil was on the same side with herself, and only two or
three seats off. But Beatrix saw Mr. Berners and Mrs. Blondelle sitting
immediately opposite to herself, and with a recklessness that savored of
fatuity, still carrying on their sentimental flirtation.
Yes! Rosa was still throwing up her eyes to his eyes, and cooing "soft
nonsense" in his ears; and Lyon was still dwelling on her glances and
her tones with lover-like devotion. Suddenly assuming a gay tone, she
asked him: "Where is our ghastly friend, Death! I do not see him anywhere in the
room, and I was so anxious to see him unmasked, that I might find out
who he is. Where is he? Do you see him anywhere?"