ne pillars dotted about here and there for
supports. There is one other that is rather large, but the rest are
small. One is used as if it were an ice house; there are others for
wine; and there are some storerooms. For a week before the Great Affair
men were working down there all day, and towards the last far into the
night. Big boxes and bales were lugged down stairs, and didn't come up
again. Not a hint went round of what was going on, but I was sure that
Aladdin's Cave was in mysterious process of manufacture.

There seemed quite a pressure on the atmosphere for days at The
Moorings, except in Sally Woodburn's rooms, for I've noticed that she
is never excited by social events. They seem of little real importance
to her, I suppose, compared with the past which she has always in her
thoughts. When I was with her I felt calmer; but with others, or when I
was alone (which seldom happened for more than ten minutes at a
stretch) I was as much excited as anybody. Partly it may have been the
effect of climate, for the air in America certainly does make you feel
always as if something wonderful was going to happen to you round the
next corner; and partly it was the effect of Potter.

Potter was most disturbing--and is still, for that matter. He has the
air of feeling that he and he alone has a right to me, and it's quite a
lesson in tact keeping the peace between him and other men who feel it
their Christian duty to be a little nice to a young foreigner.

But I am thinking now of the time before the Great Affair. It really
was a strain wondering what it would be like, and whether it would be a
grand success, or whether it would fall short of all the brilliant
expectations, when the mystery should be revealed.

At last the night came. The invitations were for ten o'clock, and
people could not resist the temptation to come soon after the hour, and
begin. Mrs. Ess Kay stood in the Early English drawing-room (that's the
style it's furnished in, or she believes it is) receiving without a
mask, and dressed to represent Queen Margaret of Navarre, from whom she
says that she is descended. She had another dress to put on afterwards,
so that none of the guests would recognise her, and she could have fun
with the rest, but no one knew about that except Sally and Potter, and
me.

We others didn't appear at first, because we had no costumes to change
with, but by and by, when a lot of people had arrived, we mingled with
them.

As