The Fortieth Door | Page 5

down upon
them. Abandoning Jinny to her fate, Ryder sought refuge and a
cigarette.
The hall was crowded now; the ball was a flash of color, a whirl of
satins and spangles and tulle and gauze, gold and green and rose and
sapphire, gyrating madly in vivid projection against the black and white
stripes of the Moorish walls. The color and the music had sent their
quickening reactions among the throng. Masks were lending audacity
to mischief and high spirits.
Three little Pierrettes scampered through the crowd, pelting right and
left with confetti and balloons, and two stalwart monks and a thin
Hamlet pursued them, keeping up the bombardment amid a great
combustion of balloons. A spangled Harlequin snatched his hands full
of confetti and darted behind a palm.
It was the palm of the black phantom, the palm of Ryder's rebuff.
Perhaps the Harlequin had met repulse here, too, and cherished
resentment, not a very malicious resentment but a mocking feint of it,
for when Ryder turned sharply after him--oddly, he himself was
strolling toward that nook--he found Harlequin circling with mock
entreaties about the stubbornly refusing black domino.
"Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?"
chanted Harlequin, with a shower of confetti flung at the girl's averted
face.
There was such a shrinking of genuine fright in her withdrawal that

Ryder had a fine thrill of rescue.
"My dance," he declared, laying an intervening hand on her muffled
arm.
His tartan-draped shoulder crowded the Harlequin from sight.
She raised her head. The black street veil was flung back, but a black
yashmak was hiding all but her eyes. Great dark eyes they were, deep
as night and soft as shadows, arched with exquisitely curved brows like
the sweep of wild birds' wings.... The most lovely eyes that dreams
could bring.
A flash of relief shone through their childish fright. With sudden
confidence she turned to Ryder.
"Thank you.... My education, monsieur, has proceeded to the Ts," she
told him with a nervous little laugh over her chagrin, drowned in a
burst of louder laughter from the discomfited Harlequin, who turned on
his heel and then bounded after fresh prey.
"Shall we dance or promenade?" asked Ryder.
Hesitatingly her gaze met his. Red and gold and green and blue flecks
of confetti were glimmering like fishscales over her black wrap and
were even entangled drolly in the absurd lengths of her eye-lashes.
"It is--if I have not forgotten how to dance," she murmured. "If it is a
waltz, perhaps--"
It was a waltz. Ryder had an odd impression of her irresolution before,
with strange eagerness, he swept her into the music. Within the clumsy
bulk of her draperies his arm felt the slightness of her young form. She
was no more than a child.... No child, either, at a masquerade, but a
fairy, dancing in the moonlight.... She was a leaf blowing in the
breeze.... She was the very breeze and the moonlight.
And then, to his astonishment, the dance was over. Those moments had

seemed no more than one.
"We must have the next," he said quickly. "What made you think you
had forgotten?"
"It is nearly four years, monsieur, since I danced with a man."
"With a man? You have been dancing with girls, then?"
She nodded.
"At a school?"
"At a--a sort of school." The black domino laughed with ruefulness.
"At a very dull sort of school."
"To which, I hope, you are not to return?"
She made no answer to that--unless it was a sigh that slipped out.
"At any rate," he said cheerily, "you are dancing to-night."
"To-night--yes, to-night I am dancing!" There was triumph in her
young voice, triumph and faint defiance, and gayety again in her
changing eyes.
Extraordinary, those eyes. Innocent, audacious, bewildering.... To look
down into them produced the oddest of excitement.
He took off his mask. Masks were hindering things--he could see so
much better without.
She, too, could see better--could see him better. Shyly, yet intently, her
gaze took note of him, of the clean, clear-cut young face, bronzed and
rather thin, of the dark hair that looked darker against the scarlet cap, of
the deep-set eyes, hazel-brown, that met hers so often and were so full
of contradictory things ... life ... and humor ... and frank simplicity ...
and subtle eagerness.

He looked so young and confident and handsome....
"You are--a Scotchman?" slipped out from her black yashmak.
"Only in costume. I am an American."
She repeated it a little musingly. "I do not think I ever met an American
young man." She added, "I have met old ones--yes, and middle-aged
ones and the women--but a young one, no."
"A retired spot, that school of yours," said Ryder appreciatively. "You
are French?"
"That