ward sigh, for the dressed-up Parisian
always bored her. She rose quickly, and promising her mother to be back
soon, she linked her arm to that of the notorious gambler and passed
through the great palm-court into the theatre.

Then, a few moments later, she found herself carried around amid the
mad crowd of revellers, who laughed merrily as the coloured serpentines
thrown from the boxes fell upon them.

To lift one's _loup_ was a breach of etiquette. Everyone was closely
masked. British members of Parliament, French senators, Italian members
of the Camera, Spanish grandees and Russian princes, all with their
womenfolk, hob-nobbed with cocottes, _escrocs_, and the most
notorious adventurers and adventuresses in all Europe. Truly, it was a
never-to-be-forgotten scene of cosmopolitan fun.

The Count, who was a bad dancer, collided with a slim, well-dressed
French girl, but did not apologize.

"Oh! la la!" cried the girl to her partner, a stout figure in
Mephistophelian garb. "An exquisitely polite gentleman that, mon cher
Alphonse! I believe he must really be the Pork King from Chicago--eh?"

The Count heard it, and was furious. Dorise, however, said nothing. She
was thinking of Hugh's strange disappearance, and how he had broken his
word to her.

Meanwhile, Lady Ranscomb, secretly very glad that Hugh had been
prevented from accompanying them, and centring all her hopes upon her
daughter's marriage with George Sherrard, sat chattering with a Mrs.
Down, the fat wife of a war-profiteer, whose acquaintance she had made
in Paris six months before.

Dorise made pretense of enjoying the dance though eager to get back
again to Monte Carlo in order to learn the reason of her lover's
absence. She was devoted to Hugh. He was all in all to her.

She danced with several partners, having first made a rendezvous with
her mother at midnight at a certain spot under one of the great palms
in the promenade. At masked balls the chaperon is useless, and everyone,
being masked, looks so much alike that mistakes are easy.

About half-past one o'clock a big motor-car drew up in the Place before
the Casino, and a tall man in a white fancy dress of a cavalier, with
wide-brimmed hat and staggering plume, stepped from it and, presenting
his ticket, passed at once into the crowded ball-room. For a full ten
minutes he stood watching the crowd of revellers intently, eyeing each
of them keenly, though the expression on his countenance was hid