her to the ladies' dressing room, and him I
commissioned to have her trunk conveyed where she might wish. As she
disappeared within the doorway her hat brim gave me a saucy little nod
of farewell.

When I was in my room the enormity of my offense and the absurdity of
my position were forced upon me. Here I was impersonating another man
and under promise to meet my victim in the very presence of the wife
of the man I impersonated, perhaps face to face with the man himself.
There could be no explanation, no palliation of the trick I had
played, which would allow me to retire with a resemblance of
countenance. Who would credit my statement of innocence, even was I
willing to throw the burden of the mistake on the shoulders
of--Margery? _Margery!_ I pronounced the name aloud, but in a whisper,
and liked the sound of it so well that I said it again.

Then I realized that I was standing in front of my shaving mirror, one
hand clasping a collar, the other a tie, and that the glass reflected
an expression positively disgusting in its rapture. I chucked the
collar into a corner and sat down on the edge of the bed to think it
out. At the end of twenty minutes I was where I had started in. But my
mind was made up. At least she should not find me a coward. I would do
exactly as I had promised.

I shaved and dressed. Half an hour later I was standing in the doorway
of the dancing floor trying to discover where "Edith" was.

But "my wife," if present, inconsiderately was concealing her identity
in the faces and figures of half a hundred or more women, not one of
whom I knew. Margery apparently had not yet come upon the floor,
or--the horrid thought obtruded itself--she had discovered who I was,
or, rather, who I was not. And what more likely? I had been an ass not
to think of this before. And as to the consequences? Each possibility
was a shade more humiliating than the one before.

Then, just as I was about to turn away to hide myself, to forget
myself, anywhere, anyhow, I saw Margery; and, to save my soul, I could
not have left without a lingering look by which to remember all the
sweet lines of her face and figure. Bereft of that long coat and close
veil, for the first time I saw what I had only guessed at before. She
had stepped from the shelter of a palm to lay a detaining hand upon
the arm of an older woman; and as she stood there, with bright eyes
regarding the dancers, her head tilted back, the thought of flight
fled fr