"Hugh must have been detained by something very unexpected, mother," Dorise said. "He never disappoints us."
"Oh, yes, he does. One night we were going to the Embassy Club--don't you recollect it--and he never turned up."
"Oh, well, mother. It was really excusable. His cousin arrived from New York quite unexpectedly upon some family business. He phoned to you and explained," said the girl.
"Well, what about that night when I asked him to dinner at the Ritz to meet the Courtenays and he rang up to say he was not well? Yet I saw him hale and hearty next day at a matinee at the Comedy."
"He may have been indisposed, mother," Dorise said. "Really I think you judge him just a little too harshly."
"I don't. I take people as I find them. Your father always said that, and he was no fool, my dear. He made a fortune by his cleverness, and we now enjoy it. Never associate with unsuccessful persons. It's fatal!"
"That's just what old Sir Dudley Ash, the steel millionaire, told me the other day when we were over at Cannes, mother. Never associate with the unlucky. Bad luck, he says, is a contagious malady."
"And I believe it--I firmly believe it," declared Lady Ranscomb. "Your poor father pointed it out to me long ago, and I find that what he said is too true."
"But we can't all be lucky, mother," said the girl, watching the revelry before her blankly as she reflected upon the mystery of Hugh's absence.
"No. But we can, nevertheless, be rich, if we look always to the main chance and make the best of our opportunities," her mother said meaningly.
At that moment the Count d'Autun approached them. He was dressed as a pierrot, but being masked was only recognizable by the fine ruby ring upon his finger.
"Will mademoiselle do me the honour?" he said in French, bowing elegantly. "They are dancing in the theatre. Will you come, Mademoiselle Dorise?"
"Delighted," she said, with an inward sigh, for the dressed-up Parisian always bored her. She rose quickly, and promising her mother to be back soon, she linked her arm to that of the notorious gambler and passed through the great palm-court into the theatre.
Then, a few moments later, she found herself carried around amid the mad crowd of revellers, who laughed merrily as the coloured serpentines thrown from the boxes fell upon them.
To lift one's loup was a breach of etiquette. Everyone was closely masked. British members of Parliament, French senators, Italian members of the Camera, Spanish grandees and Russian princes, all with their womenfolk, hob-nobbed with cocottes, escrocs, and the most notorious adventurers and adventuresses in all Europe. Truly, it was a never-to-be-forgotten scene of cosmopolitan fun.