calling that I was soon to put my
trust in the hands of that very fickle goddess.

He nodded and returned to his revolvers, while I went out of the shop,
hailed a cab, and drove up-town to my apartments in Riverside. It was
eight o'clock by my watch. I leaned back against the cushions,
ruminating. There seemed to be something going on that night; the ten
of hearts was acquiring a mystifying, not to say sinister, aspect.
First it had alarmed the girl in Mouquin's, and now this stranger in
the curio-shop. I was confident that the latter had lied in regard to
his explanations. The card _had_ startled him, but his reasons were
altogether of transparent thinness. A man never likes to confess that
he is unlucky at cards; there is a certain pride in lying about the
enormous stakes you have won and the wonderful draws you have made. I
frowned. It was not possible for me to figure out what his interest in
the card was. If he was a Westerner, his buying a pistol in a pawnshop
was at once disrobed of its mystery; but the inconsistent elegance of
his evening clothes doubled my suspicions. Bah! What was the use of
troubling myself with this stranger's affairs? He would never cross my
path again.

In reasonable time the cab drew up in front of my apartments. I
dressed, donned my Capuchin's robe and took a look at myself in the
pier-glass. Then I unwrapped the package and put on the mask. The
whole made a capital outfit, and I was vastly pleased with myself.
This was going to be such an adventure as one reads about in the
ancient numbers of _Blackwood's_. I slipped the robe and mask into my
suit-case and lighted my pipe. During great moments like this, a man
gathers courage and confidence from a pipeful of tobacco. I dropped
into a comfortable Morris, touched the gas-logs, and fell into a
pleasant dream. It was not necessary for me to start for the
Twenty-third Street ferry till nine; so I had something like
three-quarters of an hour to idle away. . . . What beautiful hair that
girl had! It was like sunshine, the silk of corn, the yield of the
harvest. And the marvelous abundance of it! It was true that she was
an artist's model; it was equally true that she had committed a mild
impropriety in addressing me as she had; but, for all I could see, she
was a girl of delicate breeding, doubtless one of the many whose family
fortunes, or misfortunes, force them to earn a living. And it is no
disgrace these days to