The Day of Days Part 32

In effect, he didn't arrive at all, but suddenly was there.

A car, discharging its pa.s.sengers before the smallish gentleman could catch the eye of its operator, flew suddenly upward in the echo of a gate slammed shut in his face; and all the other cars were still at the top, according to the bronze arrows of their tell-tale dials. The late arrival held up patiently; but after an instant's deliberation, doffed his hat, crushed it flat, slipped out of his voluminous cloak, and beckoned a liveried attendant.

In the costume thus disclosed, he cut an impish figure: "Satan on the half-sh.e.l.l," Peter Kenny had christened him.

A dress coat of black satin fitted P. Sybarite more neatly than him for whom it had been made. The frilled bosom of his shirt was set with winking rubies, and the lace cuffs at his wrists were caught together with rubies--whether real or false, like coals of fire: and ruby was the hue both of his satin mask and his satin small-clothes. Buckles of red paste brilliants burned on the insteps of his slender polished shoes with scarlet heels; and his snug black silk stockings set off ankles and calves so well-turned that the Prince of Sin himself might have taken pride in them. For boutonniere he wore a smouldering ember--so true an imitation that at first he himself had hesitated to touch it. Literally to crown all, his ruddy hair was twisted upward from each temple in a cornuted fashion that was most vividly picturesque.

"Here," he said, surrendering hat and coat to the servitor before the latter could remonstrate--"take and check these for me, please. I shan't be going for some time yet."

"Sorry, sir, but the cloak-room down 'ere 's closed, sir. You'll have to check them on the ball-room floor above."

"No matter," said the little man: and groping in a pocket, he produced a dollar bill and tendered it to ready fingers; "you keep 'em for me, down here. It'll save time when I'm ready to go."

"Very good, sir. Thank you."

"You won't forget me?"

The flunkey grinned. "You're the only gentleman I've seen to-night, sir, in a costume anything like your own."

"There's but one of me in the Union," said the gentleman, sententious: "my spear knows no brother."

"Thank you, sir," said the servant civilly, making off.

With an air of some dubiety, the little man watched him go.

"I say!" he cried suddenly--"come back!"

He was obeyed.

A second dollar bill appeared as it were by magic between his fingers.

The flunkey stared.

"Beg pardon, sir?"

"Take it"--impatiently.

"Thank you." The well-trained fingers executed their most familiar manoeuvre. "But--m'y I ask, sir--wot's it for?"

"You called me a gentleman just now."

"Yes, sir."

"You were right."

"Quite so, sir."

"The devil _is_ a gentleman," the masquerader insisted firmly.

"So I've always 'eard, sir."

"Then you may go; you've earned the other dollar."

Obsequiousness stared: "M'y I ask, 'ow so?"

"By standing for that antediluvian bromidiom. I had to get it off my chest to somebody, or else blow up. Far better to hire an audience when you can't be original. Remember that; you've been paid: you daren't object."

"Thankyousir," said the lackey blankly.

"And now--avaunt--before I brand thee for mine own!"

The little gentleman flung out an imperative, melodramatic arm; and veritable sparks sprayed from his crackling finger-tips. The servant retired in haste and dismay.

"'E's balmy--or screwed--or the Devil 'imself!" he muttered....

Beneath his mask the little man grinned privately at the man's retreat.

"Piker!" said he severely--"sharpening your wits on helpless servants.

A waiter has no friends, anyway!"

An elevator, descending, discharged into the lobby half a dozen mirthful maskers. Of these, a Scheherazade of bewitching prettiness (in a cloak of ermine!) singled out the silent, cynical little gentleman in scarlet mask and smalls, and menaced him merrily with a jewelled forefinger.

"What--you, Lucifer! Traitor! Where have you been all evening?"

"Madame!"--he bowed mockingly--"in spirit, always at your ear."

She flushed and bit her lip in charming confusion; while an abbess, with face serene in the frame of her snowy coif, caught up the ball of badinage:

"Ah, in spirit! But in the flesh?"

"Why, poppet!" he retorted in suave surprise--"it isn't possible that _you_ missed me?"

And she, too, coloured; while a third, a girl dressed all in buckskin from beaded hunting-shirt to fringed leggings and dainty moccasins, bent to peer into his face.

"Who are you?" she demanded curiously. "I don't seem to know you--"

"That, child, you have already proved."

"I?... Proved?... How do you mean?"

"You alone have not yet blushed."

And wheeling mischievously to the others, he covered them with widespread hands in burlesque benediction.

"The unction of my deep d.a.m.nation abide with ye, my children, now and forevermore!" he chanted, showering sparks from crepitant finger-tips; and bounded lightly into the elevator.

"But your mask!" protested Scheherazade in a pet. "You've no right--when we all unmasked at supper."

Through the iron fretwork of the gate, the little gentleman shot a Parthian spark or two.