“Am I?” said the girl wearily.  “What is the good of it, I wonder?  Except that it makes one suffer more and longer.”

“No,” said Lady Garnett.  “It makes one show it less, and only that matters.  Aren’t we going to Lady Dulminster to-night?  Ah, my dear, the play must go on; we mustn’t spoil the fun with sour faces, masks, and dominos except now and then!  Believe me, cherie, underneath it all we are much the same—­very sad people.  Only it wouldn’t do to admit it.  Life would be too terrible then.  So we dance on and make believe we enjoy it, and by-and-by, if we play hard enough, we do believe it for a minute or two.  From one point of view, you know, it is rather amusing.”

Mary looked up at last; her eyes, shining out of the white face, seemed to have grown suddenly very large and bright.

“Does it go on always, Aunt Marcelle?” she asked with a child’s directness.

“Always!” said Lady Garnett promptly.  “Only there are interludes, and then sometimes one guest steals away with his bosom friend into a corner, and they look under each other’s masks.  But it isn’t a nice sight, and it mustn’t happen very often, else they wouldn’t be back in their places when the music began.  Ah, my child!” she broke off suddenly, “I am talking nonsense to amuse you, and making you sadder all the time.  But you know I think nobody was ever consoled by consolations unless it were the consoler.”

She drew the girl’s blank face towards her, clasped the smooth brown head against her breast with two bird-like hands on which the diamonds glittered.

“Cry, my dear!” she said at last; “that is the best of being young—­that gift of tears.  When one is old one laughs instead; but ah, mon Dieu! it is a queer kind of laughter.”

They sat locked together in silence until the room was quite dark, lit only by the vague lamplight which shone in through the fine lace curtains from the street.  Then Mary rose and played a little, very softly, in the darkness, morsels of Chopin, until the footman came in with a bright lamp, announcing that dinner was on the table.  And Charles Sylvester had not arrived.

He atoned for this breach of his habit, however, on the morrow by making an early call upon the two ladies, whom he found alone, immediately after luncheon.  He was very clean shaven, very carefully dressed, and with his closely buttoned frock-coat and his irreproachable hat, which he held ponderously in his hand during his protracted visit, he had the air of having come immediately from church.

Lady Garnett taxed him with this occupation presently, suppressing her further thought that he looked still more like an aspirant to matrimony, and Charles admitted the impeachment; he had been in the morning with his sister, Mrs. Lightmark, to the Temple Church.  His severe gaze was turned inquiringly upon Mary.  Lady Garnett responded for her a little flippantly.

“Oh, Mary went nowhere this morning, Mr. Sylvester—­not even to the church parade.  We were very late last night, at Lady Dulminster’s.  London grows later and later; we shall be dining at midnight soon.”