The Day of Days Part 33

"I wear no mask!" he informed them solemnly as the car shot from sight.

The conceit tickled him; he had it still in mind when he alighted at the ball-room floor.

Pausing in the anteroom, he struck an artificial pose on his high red heels and stroked thin, satiric lips with slender fingers, reviewing the crush with eyes that glinted light-hearted malice through the scarlet visor; seeking a certain one and finding her not among those many about him--their gay exotic trappings half hidden beneath wraps of modern convention a.s.sumed against impending departure.

A hedge of backs hid from him the ball-room, choking the wide, high arch of its entrance.

Turning to one side, he began to pick a slow way through the press, and so presently found himself shoulder to shoulder with elderly and pompous Respectability in a furred great-coat; who, all ready for the street, with shining topper poised at breast-level, had delayed his going for an instant's guarded confabulation with a youngish man conspicuous in this, that he, alone of all that company, was in simple evening dress.

Their backs were toward P. Sybarite, but by the fat pink folds above the back of Respectability's collar and the fat white side-whiskers adorning his plump pink chops, Beelzebub knew that he encountered for the second time that evening Respectability of the gold-capped cane.

Without the least shame, he paused and c.o.c.ked sharp ears to catch what he could of the conversation between these two.

Little enough he profited by his open eavesdropping; what he heard was scarcely illuminating when applied to the puzzle that haunted him.

"She won't--that's flat," Respectability's companion announced in a sullen voice.

By the tone of this last Beelzebub knew that it issued from an ugly twisted mouth.

"But," Respectability insisted heavily--"You're sure you've done your best to persuade her?"

"She won't listen to reason."

"Well ... everything's arranged. You have me to thank for that."

"Oh," sneered the younger man, "you've done a lot, you have!"

And then, moving to give way to another making toward the elevators, Brian Shaynon discovered at his elbow that small attentive body in sinister scarlet and black.

For a breath, utterance failed the old man. He glared pop-eyed indignation from a congested countenance, his fat lips quivering and his jowls as well; and then as Beelzebub tapped him familiarly if lightly upon the chest, his face turned wholly purple, from swollen temples to pendulous chin.

"Well met, _ame d.a.m.nee_!" P. Sybarite saluted him gaily. "Are you indeed off so early upon my business?"

"d.a.m.nation!" exclaimed Brian Shaynon, all but choking.

"It shall surely be your portion," gravely a.s.sented the little man.

"To all who in my service prosper in a worldly way--d.a.m.nation, upon my honourable Satanic word!"

"Who the devil--?"

"_Whisht!_" P. Sybarite reproved. "A trifle more respect, if you please--lest you wake in the morning to find all my benefactions turned to ashes in your strong-boxes!"

But here Respectability found his full voice.

"Who are you?" he demanded so stormily that heads turned curiously his way. "I demand to know! Remove that mask! Impertinent--!"

"Mask?" purred Beelzebub in a tone of wonder. "I wear no mask!"

"No mask!" stammered the older man, in confusion.

"Nay, _I_ am frankly what I am--old Evil's self," P. Sybarite explained blandly; "but you, Brian Shaynon--now you go always masked: waking or sleeping, hypocrisy's your lifelong mask. You see the distinction, old servant?"

In another moment he might have suffered a sound drubbing with the ebony cane but for Peter Kenny's parlour-magic trick. For as Brian Shaynon started forward to seize Beelzebub by the collar, a stream of incandescent sparks shot point-blank into his face; and when he fell back in puffing dismay, Beelzebub laughed provokingly, ducked behind the backs of a brace of highly diverted bystanders, and quickly and deftly wormed his way through the press to the dancing-floor itself.

As for the younger man--he of the unhandsome mouth--P. Sybarite was content to hold him in reserve, to be dealt with later, at his leisure. For the present, his business pressed with the waning night.

In high feather, bubbling with mischief, he sidled along the wall a little way, then halted to familiarise himself with scene and atmosphere against his next move.

But after the first minute or two, spent in silent review of the brilliant scene, his thin lips lost something of their cynic modelling, the eyes behind the scarlet visor something of their mischievous twinkle--softening with shadows envious and regretful.

The room was as one vast pool of limpid golden light, walls and ceilings so luminous with the refulgence of a thousand electric bulbs that they seemed translucent, glowing with a radiance from beyond.

On the famous floor, twelve-score couples swung and swayed to the intoxicating rhythms of an unseen orchestra; kaleidoscopic in their amazingly variegated costuming of colour, drifting past the lonely, diabolical little figure, an endless chain of paired anachronisms.

Searching narrowly each fair face that flashed past in another's arms, he waited with seeming patience. But the music buzzed in his brain and his toes tingled for it; breathing the warm, voluptuous air, he inhaled hints of a thousand agreeable and exciting scenes; watching, he perceived in perturbation the witchery of a hundred exquisite women. And a rancorous discontent gnawed at his famished heart.

This was all his by right of birth--should be his now, but for the blind malice of his sorry destiny. _Kismet_ had favoured him greatly, but too late....

But of a sudden he forgot self-pity and vain repining, in the discovery of the one particular woman swinging dizzily past in the arms of an Incroyable, whose giddy plumage served only to render the more striking her exquisite fairness and the fine simplicity of her costume.

For she was all in the black-and-white uniform of a Blessington shopgirl; black skirt and blouse, stockings and pumps, relieved by showy linen at throat and wrists, with at waist the white patch of a tiny lace-and-linen ap.r.o.n.

Perhaps it was his start of recognition; it may have been the very fixed intensity of his regard; whatever drew it, her gaze veered to his silent and aloof figure, and for an instant his eyes held hers. At once, to his consternation, the hot blood stained her lovely face from throat to brow; her glance wavered, fell in confusion, then as though by a strong effort of will alone, steadied once more to his. Nodding with an air of friendly diffidence, she flashed him a strange, perplexing smile; and was swept on and away.

For a thought he checked his breath in stupefaction. Had she, then, recognised him? Was it possible that her intuition had been keen enough to pierce his disguise, vizard and all?

But the next moment he could have sworn in chagrined appreciation of his colossal stupidity. Of course!--his costume was that worn by Peter Kenny earlier in the evening; and as between Peter and himself, of the same stock, the two were much of a muchness in physique; both, moreover, were red-headed; their points of unlikeness were negligible, given a mask.

So after all, her emotion had been due solely to embarra.s.sment and regret for the pain she had caused poor Peter by refusing his offer of marriage!

Well!... P. Sybarite drew a long, sane breath, laughed wholesomely at himself, and thereafter had eyes only to keep the girl in sight, however far and involved her wanderings through the labyrinth of the dance.

In good time the music ended; the fluent movement of the dancers subsided with a curious effect of eddying--like confetti settling to rest; and P. Sybarite left his station by the wall, slipping like quicksilver through the heart of the throng to the far side of the room, where, near a great high window wide to the night, the breathless shopgirl had dropped into a chair.

At Beelzebub's approach the Incroyable, perhaps mindful of obligations in another quarter, bowed and moved off, leaving the field temporarily quite clear.

She greeted him with a faint recurrence of her former blush.

"Why, Peter!" she cried--and so sealed with confirmation his surmise as to her mistake--"I was wondering what had become of you. I thought you must have gone home."

"Peter did go home," P. Sybarite affirmed gravely, bending over her hand.

His voice perplexed her tremendously. She opened eyes wide.

"Peter!" she exclaimed reproachfully--"you promised it wouldn't make any difference. We were to go on just as always--good friends. And now ..."

"Yes?" P. Sybarite prompted as she faltered.

"I don't like to say it, Peter, but--your voice is so different.