way to the ball-room: I had dispensed
with going up to the dressing-room. My robe was a genuine one, heavy
and warm; so I had no overcoat to check.

"Grave monk, your blessing!"

Turning, I beheld an exquisite Columbine.

[Illustration: Turning, I beheld an exquisite Columbine.]

"_Pax vobiscum_!" I replied solemnly.

"_Pax_ . . . What does that mean?"

"It means, do not believe all you see in the newspapers."

Columbine laughed gaily. "I did not know that you were a Latin
scholar; and besides, you gave me to understand you were coming as a
Jesuit, Billy."

Billy? Here was one who thought she knew me. I hastened to
disillusion her.

"My dear Columbine, you do not know me, not the least bit. My name is
not Billy, it is Dicky."

"Oh, you can not fool me," she returned. "I heard you call out to
Teddy Hamilton that your card was the ten of hearts; and you wrote me,
saying that would be your card."

Complications already, and I hadn't yet put a foot inside the ball-room!

"I am sorry," I said, "but you have made a mistake. Your Jesuit
probably told you his card would be the nine, not the ten."

"I will wager--"

"Hush! This is a charity dance; no one makes wagers at such affairs."

"But--Why, my goodness! there's my Jesuit now!" And to my intense
relief she dashed away.

I carefully observed the Jesuit, and made up my mind to keep an eye
upon him. If he really possessed the ten of hearts, the man who kept
tally on the cardboard was doing some tall thinking about this time. I
glided away, into the gorgeous ball-room.

What a vision greeted my eye! The decorations were in red and yellow,
and it seemed as though perpetual autumnal sunset lay over everything.
At the far end of the room was a small stage hidden behind palms and
giant ferns. The band was just striking up _A Summer Night in Munich_,
and a wonderful kaleidoscope revolved around me. I saw Cavaliers and
Roundheads, Puritans and Beelzebubs, Musketeers, fools, cowboys,
Indians, kings and princes; queens and empresses, fairies and Quaker
maids, white and black and red and green dominoes. Tom Fool's night,
indeed!

Presently I saw the noble Doge of Venice coming my way. From his
portly carriage I reasoned that if he wasn't in the gold-book of Venice
he stood very well up in the gold-book of New York, He stopped at my
side and struck an attitude.

"_Pax vobiscum_!" said I, bowing.

"Be at the Inquisition Chamber, directly the cl