“Nothing, silly.”  And she passed on, turned to the right, and met Sylvia Quest, looking very frail and delicate in her bath-robe and powdered hair.  The girl passed her with the same timid, almost embarrassed little inclination with which she now invariably greeted her, and Rosalie turned and caught her, turning her around with a laugh.  “What is the matter, dear?”

“M-matter?” stammered Sylvia, trembling under the reaction.

“Yes.  You are not very friendly, and I’ve always liked you.  Have I offended you, Sylvia?”

She was looking smilingly straight into the blue eyes.

“No—­oh, no!” said the girl hastily.  “How can you think that, Mrs. Dysart?”

“Then I don’t think it,” replied Rosalie, laughing.  “You are a trifle pale, dear.  Touch up your lips a bit.  It’s very Louis XVI.  See mine?...  Will you kiss me, Sylvia?”

Again a strange look flickered in the girl’s eyes; Rosalie kissed her gently; she had turned very white.

“What is your costume?” asked Mrs. Dysart.

“Flame colour and gold.”

“Hell’s own combination, dear,” laughed Rosalie.  “You will make an exquisite little demon shepherdess.”

And she went on, smiling back at the girl in friendly fashion, then turned and lightly descended the stairway, snapping on her loup-mask before the jolly crowd below could identify her.

Masked figures here and there detained her, addressing her in disguised voices, but she eluded them, slipped through the throngs on terrace and lawn, ran down the western slope and entered the rose-garden.  A man in mask and violet-gray court costume rose from a marble seat under the pergola and advanced toward her, the palm of his left hand carelessly balanced on his gilded hilt.

“So you did get my note, Duane?” she said, laying her pretty hand on his arm.

“I certainly did.  What can I do for you, Rosalie?”

“I don’t know.  Shall we sit here a moment?”

He laughed, but continued standing after she was seated.

The air was heavy with the scent of rockets and phlox and ragged pinks and candy-tuft.  Through the sweet-scented dusky silence some small and very wakeful bird was trilling.  Great misty-winged moths came whirring and hovering among the blossoms, pale blurs in the darkness, and everywhere the drifting lamps of fireflies lighted and died out against the foliage.

The woman beside him sat with masked head bent and slightly turned from him; her restless hands worried her fan; her satin-shod feet were crossed and recrossed.

“What is the matter?” he asked.

“Life.  It’s all so very wrong.”

“Oh,” he said, smiling, “so it’s life that is amiss, not we!”

“I suppose we are....  I suppose I am.  But, Duane”—­she turned and looked at him—­“I haven’t had much of a chance yet—­to go very right or very wrong.”

“You’ve had chances enough for the latter,” he said with an unpleasant laugh.  “In this sweet coterie we inhabit, there’s always that chance.”