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“The idea! Your father is a perfect savage, at heart,” said Mrs. Banniman. She nodded at her sleeping husband, who was roused at that moment by a fly that had strayed into his right nostril. Mr. Banniman sneezed, half opened his eyes, and murmured a feeble anathema before dozing off again. It was plain that he was not greatly enjoying the Mardi Gras.

“All men are primitive,” said Roly, quoting some forgotten author, at which Eleanor eyed him languidly.

“Could you love at first sight and run off with a girl?”

“Certainly not. I’d naturally have to know something about her people–“

“Were you ever jealous?”

“You’ve never given me an occasion,” he told her, gallantly.

“Did you ever hate anybody?”

“Um-m–no!”

“Ever been afraid?”

“Not exactly.”

“Revengeful?”

“Certainly not.”

She smiled. “It’s just as I said. Respectable people don’t allow themselves to be harrowed by crude emotions. I hate my modiste when she fails to fit me; I was jealous of that baroness at the Poinciana–the one with all those gorgeous gowns; I’m afraid of flying-machines; but that is as deep as such things go, nowadays–in our set.”

Van Dam was no hand at argument, and he had a great respect for Miss Banniman’s observation; moreover, he had been discussing something of which he possessed no first-hand knowledge. Therefore, he said nothing further. No one had a greater appreciation of, or took a keener pleasure in, life’s unruffled placidity than the young society man. No one had a denser ignorance of its depths, its hidden currents, and its uncharted channels than he; for adventure had never come his way, romance had never beckoned him from rose-embowered balconies. And yet, as the world goes, he was a normal individual, save for the size of his income. He had not lost interest in life; he was merely interested in things which did not matter. That, after all, is quite different.

There were times, nevertheless, when he longed vaguely for something thrilling to happen, when he regretted the Oslerization of romance and the commercializing of love. Of course, adventure still existed; one could hunt big game in certain hidden quarters, if one chose. Van Dam detested stuffed heads, and it took so much time to get them. These unformed desires came to him only now and then, and he felt ashamed of them, in an idle way.

Now that the parade had passed, the visitors lost no time in leaving, and a dignified stampede toward the hotel occurred, for the gentlemen were thirsty and the ladies wished to smoke. It was due to their haste, perhaps, that Van Dam became separated from them and found himself drifting along Canal Street alone in a densely packed crowd of merrymakers. A masked woman in a daring Spanish dress chucked him under the chin; her companion showered him with confetti. A laughing Pierrot whacked him with a noisy bladder; boys and girls in ragged disguises importuned him for pennies. A very, very shapely female person, in what appeared to be the beginnings of a bathing suit, laughed over her shoulder, inviting him, with eyes that danced.

“My word!” murmured the New-Yorker. “This is worth while.”

Ahead of him, he caught a glimpse of Miss Banniman’s aigrettes and the ponderous figure of her father. But the gaiety of the carnival crowd had infected him, and he was loath to leave it for the Grunewald, whither his friends were bound with the unerring directness of thirsty millionaires. It was a brilliant, gorgeous afternoon; the streets were alive with color. Somewhere through this crowd, the young man idly reflected, adventure–even romance–might be stalking, if such things really existed. So he decided to linger. To be quite truthful, Van Dam’s decision was made, not with any faintest idea of encountering either romance or adventure, but because a slight indigestion made the thought of a gin-fizz or a julep unbearable at the moment.

As he continued to move with the throng, the butt of badinage and the target for impudent glances, he felt a desire to be of it and in it. He yielded himself to a most indiscreet impulse. Assuring himself that he was unobserved, he stepped into a store, purchased a plain black domino and mask, donned them, and then fell in with the procession once more, dimly amused at his folly, vaguely surprised at his impropriety.