The Car of Destiny | Page 7

Alice Muriel Williamson
said he. And he wished me the best of luck, though he looked as if he hardly expected me to have it.
Probably it was foolish and conceited, but I could not resist playing up to the r?le Dick suggested. She was to be Juliet. I would be Romeo.
By this time, no doubt, the Duchess's invited guests had their costumes well under way; I had to get mine, and the only way to have something worthy of the occasion was to go to Paris for it. I did go, and was back in Biarritz in two days.
The rest moved easily, without a hitch. The night of the ball came. I dressed and went alone, rather than drag Dick into an affair which might end disagreeably.
I did not put myself forward, but stood for a while and watched the dancers, waiting for my chance.
Carmona had arrived the day before. I had never met him, but what I had heard I did not like; and having seen him once or twice in London, at a distance, he was recognizable in a costume copied from a famous portrait of that Duke of Alba who loomed great in Philip the Second's day. Because of a slight difference one from the other, in the height of his shoulders, he was difficult to disguise; and though the arrangement of the costume was intended to hide the peculiarity, it was perceptible.
When the "Duke of Alba" had danced twice in succession with Juliet Capulet, I could bear my r?le of watcher no longer. Besides, I knew that I had not much time to waste. For the sake of de la Mole, who had run the risk of admitting a stranger, I must vanish before the hour for the masks to fall. When I took off my cap and bowed before this white Juliet with the pearl-laced plaits of gold, she gazed at me through her velvet mask in the silence of surprise. I could not guess whether she puzzled herself as to what was under my yellow-brown wig and my mask; but at least she must know it was Romeo who begged a dance.
I did not urge my claim on such a plea, however, least it should rouse Carmona's opposition, and cause him to keep the girl from me if he could. I merely said, "The next is our dance," risking a rebuff; but it did not come.
"Yes," she said, almost timidly. It was the first time I had heard her speak, and her voice went to my heart.
The Duke stared, as though he would have stripped off my mask by sheer force of curiosity. But he had to let the girl go; and as the music began she was in my arms. I hardly dared believe my own luck. Neither of us spoke. I was lost in the sense of her nearness, the knowledge that it was the music which gave me the right to hold her thus, and that when the music died I must let her go.
But a quick thought came. If we danced the waltz through, Carmona or someone else would claim her for the next. If I could hide the girl before it was over, perhaps I might keep her for a little time. Indeed, I must keep her, if this meeting were not to end in failure; for there were things I had to say.
The conservatory was too obvious; and the shallow staircase with its rose-garlanded balusters, and its fat silk cushion for each step, would soon be invaded by a dozen couples. What to do, then? I would have given much to know the house.
"I must speak with you," I said at last. "Where can we go?"
She did not say in return, "Do you know me, then?" or any other conventional thing. The hope in me that she had remembered well enough to guess who I was, brightened. She would not have answered a person she regarded as a stranger, as she answered me,
"There's a card-room at the end of the corridor to the left, off the big hall, where we might rest for a moment or two," she said. "But I mustn't stop long."
"No," I promised. "I won't try to keep you. I ask only a few moments. I can't tell how I thank you for giving me those."
I threw a glance round for Carmona, and saw him dancing with a stately Mary Stuart. I guessed his partner to be Lady Vale-Avon; and if I were right, it was a bad omen. She was not a woman to care for extraneous dancing, therefore she favoured Carmona in particular.
Still, for the moment he was occupied; and when his back was turned I whisked Lady Monica out of the ball-room, past the decorated staircase in the square hall, and to the room at
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