_mon cher_, I am wakeful as the pussy-cat
that rouses at the scampering of the mouse. Come, let us walk in this
garden of mine.' She linked her arm through mine and started down the
grassy, grave-lined path.

"Tiny shivers--not of cold--were flickering through my cheeks and down
my neck beneath my ears. I _had_ to have an explanation ... the snake,
her declaration that she watched me as I searched the cemetery--and
from a tomb where a beetle could not have found a hiding-place--her
announcement she was still stiff from sleeping, now her reference to
a half-forgotten graveyard as her garden.

"'See here, I want to know----' I started, but she laid her hand
across my lips.

"'Do not ask to know too soon, _mon coeur_,' she bade. 'Look at me, am
I not veritably _elegante_?' She stood back a step, gathered up her
skirts and swept me a deep curtsy.

"There was no denying she was beautiful. Her tightly curling hair had
been combed high and tied back with a fillet of bright violet tissue
which bound her brows like a diadem and at the front of which an
aigret plume was set. In her ears were hung two beautifully matched
cameos, outlined in gold and seed-pearls, and almost large as silver
dollars; a necklace of antique dull-gold hung round her throat, and
its pendant was a duplicate of her ear-cameos, while a bracelet of
matt-gold set with a fourth matched anaglyph was clasped about her
left arm just above the elbow. Her gown was sheer white muslin, low
cut at front and back, with little puff-sleeves at the shoulders,
fitted tightly at the bodice and flaring sharply from a high-set
waist. Over it she wore a narrow scarf of violet silk, hung behind her
neck and dropping down on either side in front like a clergyman's
stole. Her sandals were gilt leather, heel-less as a ballet dancer's
shoes and laced with violet ribbons. Her lovely, pearl-white hands
were bare of rings, but on the second toe of her right foot there
showed a little cameo which matched the others which she wore.

"I could feel my heart begin to pound and my breath come quicker as I
looked at her, but:

"'You look as if you're going to a masquerade,' I said.

"A look of hurt surprize showed in her eyes. 'A masquerade?' she
echoed. 'But no, it is my best, my very finest, that I wear for you
tonight, _mon adore_. Do not you like it; do you not love me,
Edouard?'

"'No,' I answered shortly, 'I do not. We might as well understand each
other, Julie. I'm not in