Hearts and Masks Part 4

The trolley ran within two miles of the Hunt Club. The car was crowded with masqueraders, and for the first time since I started out I felt comfortable. Everybody laughed and talked, though n.o.body knew who his neighbor was. I sat in a corner, silent and motionless as a sphinx.

Once a pair of blue slippers attracted my eye, and again the flash of a lovely arm. At the end of the trolley line was a carryall which was to convey us to the club. We got into the conveyance, noisily and good-humoredly. The exclamations of the women were amusing.

"Good gracious!"

"Isn't it fun!"

"Lovely!" And all that. It must have been a novelty for some of these to act naturally for once. Nothing lasts so long as the natural instinct for play; and we always find ourselves coming back to it.

Standing some hundred yards back from the road was the famous Hollywood Inn, run by the genial Moriarty. Sometimes the members of the Hunt Club put up there for the night when there was to be a run the following morning. It was open all the year round.

We made the club at exactly ten-thirty. Fortune went with me; doubtless it was the crowd going in that saved me from close scrutiny.

My spirits rose as I espied Teddy Hamilton at the door. He was on the committee, and was in plain evening clothes. It was good to see a familiar face. I shouldered toward him and pa.s.sed out my ten dollars.

"h.e.l.lo, Teddy, my son!" I cried out jovially.

"h.e.l.lo!"--grinning. Teddy thought it was some one he knew; well, so it was. "What's your card?" he cried, as I pressed by him.

"The ten of hearts."

"The ten of hearts," repeated Teddy to a man who was keeping tally on a big cardboard.

This sight did not rea.s.sure me. If they were keeping tally of all the cards presented at the door, they would soon find out that there were too many tens of hearts, too many by one! Well, at any rate, I had for the time being escaped detection; now for the fun. It would be sport-royal while it lasted. What a tale to give out at the club of a Sunday night! I chuckled on the way to the ball-room: I had dispensed with going up to the dressing-room. My robe was a genuine one, heavy and warm; so I had no overcoat to check.

"Grave monk, your blessing!"

Turning, I beheld an exquisite Columbine.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Turning, I beheld an exquisite Columbine.]

"_Pax vobisc.u.m_!" I replied solemnly.

"_Pax_ . . . What does that mean?"

"It means, do not believe all you see in the newspapers."

Columbine laughed gaily. "I did not know that you were a Latin scholar; and besides, you gave me to understand you were coming as a Jesuit, Billy."

Billy? Here was one who thought she knew me. I hastened to disillusion her.

"My dear Columbine, you do not know me, not the least bit. My name is not Billy, it is d.i.c.ky."

"Oh, you can not fool me," she returned. "I heard you call out to Teddy Hamilton that your card was the ten of hearts; and you wrote me, saying that would be your card."

Complications already, and I hadn't yet put a foot inside the ball-room!

"I am sorry," I said, "but you have made a mistake. Your Jesuit probably told you his card would be the nine, not the ten."

"I will wager--"

"Hus.h.!.+ This is a charity dance; no one makes wagers at such affairs."

"But--Why, my goodness! there's my Jesuit now!" And to my intense relief she dashed away.

I carefully observed the Jesuit, and made up my mind to keep an eye upon him. If he really possessed the ten of hearts, the man who kept tally on the cardboard was doing some tall thinking about this time. I glided away, into the gorgeous ball-room.

What a vision greeted my eye! The decorations were in red and yellow, and it seemed as though perpetual autumnal sunset lay over everything.

At the far end of the room was a small stage hidden behind palms and giant ferns. The band was just striking up _A Summer Night in Munich_, and a wonderful kaleidoscope revolved around me. I saw Cavaliers and Roundheads, Puritans and Beelzebubs, Musketeers, fools, cowboys, Indians, kings and princes; queens and empresses, fairies and Quaker maids, white and black and red and green dominoes. Tom Fool's night, indeed!

Presently I saw the n.o.ble Doge of Venice coming my way. From his portly carriage I reasoned that if he wasn't in the gold-book of Venice he stood very well up in the gold-book of New York, He stopped at my side and struck an att.i.tude.

"_Pax vobisc.u.m_!" said I, bowing.

"Be at the Inquisition Chamber, directly the clock strikes the midnight hour," he said mysteriously.

"I shall be there to deliver the supreme interrogation," I replied.

"It is well." He drifted away like a stately s.h.i.+p.

Delightful foolery! I saw the Jesuit, and moved toward him.

"Disciple of Loyola, hast thou the ten of hearts?"

"My hearts number nine, for I have lost one to the gay Columbine."

"I breathe! Thou art not he whom I seek."

We separated. I was mortally glad that Columbine had made a mistake.

The women always seek the monk at a masquerade; they want absolution for the follies they are about to commit. A demure Quakeress touched my sleeve in pa.s.sing.

"Tell me, grave monk, why did you seek the monastery?"

"My wife fell in love with me,"--gloomily.

"Then you have a skeleton in the clothes-press?"

"Do I look like a man who owned such a thing as a clothes-press, much less so fas.h.i.+onable a thing as a family skeleton?"

"Then what do you here?"

"I am mingling with fools as a penance."

A fool caught me by the sleeve and batted me gaily over the head with a bladder.

"Merry come up, why am I a fool?"

"It is the fas.h.i.+on," was my answer. This was like to gain me the reputation of being a wit. I must walk carefully, or these thoughtless ones would begin to suspect there was an impostor among them.