ed sufficient
command of herself not to betray her emotion or even to seem anxious
to make the appointment.

"Oh, there's no chance for that now," she evaded as per instructions,
and with so successful a semblance of indifference that Savage was
openly and profoundly perplexed. "I've heaps of things yet to do for
Mrs. Gosnold--I'm really frightfully pushed for time even to dress."

"Yes--of course. But this talk has got to happen some time soon.
However, it ought to be easy enough under our masks. What costume will
you be wearing?"

"I don't know. Mrs. Gosnold promised to find something and send it to
my room. I presume she must have forgotten--but perhaps it's
there now."

"Well, keep an eye bright for me, then. I'll be Harlequin--an old
costume I happened by sheer luck to have left here some years ago.
Otherwise, I guess, I'd have to wrap up in a sheet and act like a dead
one."

She laughed mechanically, murmured "I must fly!" and forthwith dashed
up the great staircase and to her room.

Her costume had not yet been delivered; she had still to wait half an
hour by the clock; but there was plenty of detail wherewith to occupy
her time. On the other hand, the routine of one's toilet is a famous
incentive to thoughtfulness, and as she went automatically through the
motions of beautifying herself and dressing her hair, Sally's mind
took advantage of this, its first real freedom of the day, and focused
sharply on her own concerns.

It reminded her, among other things, of the fact that she had not seen
Lyttleton since an adventitious glimpse of him going in to breakfast
just as she was leaving the house to deliver the invitations.

She wondered idly about him, in an odd humour of tolerant superiority,
as one might contemplate the presumption of an ill-bred child. And she
wondered dumbly at herself, whom she found able to imagine without
flinching an encounter with him of the mildly flirtatious description
licensed by the masquerade. Would he know instinctively who she
was and avoid her? Or have the impudence to renew his advances? Or
would he fail to fathom her identity and so lay himself open to her
castigation?

She did not for an instant forget that she was endued, not only by
personal right as an injured woman herself at fault, but also by the
authority of Mrs. Gosnold, with letters of marque and reprisal.

That she would penetrate at sight his disguise, whatever its
character, she hadn't the faintest doub