er the sun.
Just caprice, whim--you can't whistle me back and throw me over
to-morrow. This question's going to be decided here and now for ever.
Will you marry me or not?"

"Senor!" Ydo's voice was low, surprised, remonstrating, indignant. "You
forget yourself. This is no place to make a scene or to spread before the
world our private affairs. I must beg you--"

Wilfred waved his hands impatiently, as if brushing away her objections.
"My answer, Ydo. Here and now."

[Illustration]

She seemed completely nonplussed, and Hayden divined that this proud and
resourceful Ydo felt herself overmatched and outwitted for the first
time. She stood perfectly still, but gazing through her mask at Ames.
"I--I think that you will get your heart's desire, senor," she murmured
at last, her voice broken, inaudible.

Ames stepped forward, still oblivious to the fact that there were other
people present. His face had grown still whiter but upon it there was
already an irradiation of joy. "Do you mean it?" he said in a low voice
vibrating with some strong feeling. "Do you mean it?"

The little group looked at him in amazement. Was this eager man with the
burning, intense eyes, the unruffled and imperturbable Wilfred, to whose
placid silence they were so accustomed?

"Why, Wilfred!" exclaimed Edith Symmes. "What on earth has come over
you?"

But Ames paid not the least attention to her. It was as if he had not
heard her voice. "Is it true?" he said again, his eyes fixed unwaveringly
on the black mask of the Mariposa.

"Yes, senor," she almost whispered. "Yes, it is true. But in the future,
mind you. I see only the future."

"Then tell your maid to throw all this stuff out of the window," Wilfred
again rapped the crystal. "You've done with it for ever."

The spell was broken. Hayden and his temporarily stupefied guests roused
themselves, and crowded about Ydo and Wilfred in a chorus of questions
and congratulations; but every one felt that the moment for departure had
come, and in the babble of adieus Hayden made an effort to get a moment's
speech with Marcia alone, but in some feminine and elusive way she
divined his intention and frustrated it, and in spite of the
congratulations of his guests he was left standing upon his lonely hearth
with a desolate feeling of failure.

He could hardly say what was the matter. Everything had gone without a
hitch; that is, until staid old Ames had so hopelessly forgotten himself.
The dinn