as if she were viewing men being tortured or invested with
honor from the Dragon Throne, to Oliver, a diffident Pierrot who has
discovered no even bearably comfortable way of combining spectacles and
a mask, and Peter who [Illustration: THE LAST PIPER DANCE HAS BEEN THE
OFFICIAL PERIOD TO THE SOUTHAMPTON SUMMER] is gradually turning purple
under the furs of a dancing bear. Nothing much out of the ordinary in
the tunes and the three orchestras and the fact that a dozen gentlemen
dressed as the Devil are finding their tails very inconvenient as
regards the shimmy and a dozen Joans of Arc are eying each other with
looks of dumb hatred whenever they pass. Nothing singular about the
light-heart throb of the music, the smell of powder and scent and heat
and flowers, the whole loose drifting garland of the dancers, blowing
over and around the floor in the idle designs of sand, floating like
scraps of colored paper through a smooth wind heavy with music as the
hours run away like light water through the fingers. But outside the
house the Italian gardens are open, little lanterns spot them like
elf-lights, shining on hedge-green, pale marble; the night is pallid
with near and crowded stars, the air warm as Summer water, sweet as dear
youth.

The unmasking is to take place at midnight and it is past eleven when
Oliver drops back into the stag line after being stuck for a dance and
a half with a leaden-footed human flower-basket who devoted the entire
time to nervous giggles and the single coy statement that she just knew
he never could guess who she was but she recognized him perfectly. He
starts looking around for Ted. There he is, scanning the clown's parade
with the eyes of an anxious hawk, disgruntled nervousness plain in every
line of his body. Then Oliver remembers that he saw a slim Chinese girl
in loose blue silks go off the floor ten minutes or so ago with a tall
musketeer. He goes over and touches Ted on a particolored arm--the
latter is dressed as a red and gilt harlequin--and feels the muscles he
touches twitch under his hand.

"Cigarette? It's getting hotter than cotton in here--they'll have to
open more windows--"

"What?" Then recognizing voice and glasses "Oh yeah--guess so--awful
mob, isn't it?" and they thread their way out into the cool.

They wander down from the porch and into the gardens, past benches where
the talk that is going on seems to be chiefly in throaty undertones and
halts nervously as their