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“If I were the lion,” said her partner daringly, “by the powers, I’d play the part! I wouldn’t be a tame beast, egad! If Una went out to a fancy ball, my faith, I would go too!”

Lady Brooke uttered a little, excited laugh. The words caught her interest.

“And suppose Una went without your leave?” she said.

The Irishman looked at her with a humorous twist at one corner of his mouth.

“I’m thinking that I’d still go too,” he said.

“But if you didn’t know?” She asked the question with a curious vehemence. Her instinct told her that, however he might profess to trifle, here at least was a man.

“That wouldn’t happen,” he said, with conviction, “if I were the lion.”

The music was quickening to the finale, and she felt the strong arm grow tense about her.

“Come!” he said. “We will go into the garden.”

She went with him because it seemed that she must, but deep in her heart there lurked a certain misgiving. There was an almost arrogant air of power about this man. She wondered what Sir Roland would say if he knew, and comforted herself almost immediately with the reflection that he never could know. He had gone to Scotland, and she did not expect him back for several weeks.

So she turned aside with this stranger, and passed out upon his arm into the dusk of the soft spring night.

“You know these gardens well?” he questioned.

She came out of her meditations.

“Not really well. Lady Blythebury and I are friends, but we do not visit very often.”

“And that but secretly,” he laughed, “when the lion is absent?” She did not answer him, and he continued after a moment: “‘Pon my life, the very mention of him seems to cast a cloud. Let us draw a magic circle, and exclude him!” He waved his wand. “You knew that I was a magician?”

There was a hint of something more than banter in his voice. They had reached the end of the terrace, and were slowly descending the steps. But at his last words, Lady Brooke stood suddenly still.

“I only believe in one sort of magic,” she said, “and that is beyond the reach of all but fools.”

Her voice quivered with an almost passionate disdain. She was suddenly aware of an intense burning misery that seemed to gnaw into her very soul. Why had she come out with this buffoon, she wondered? Why had she come to the masquerade at all? She was utterly out of sympathy with its festive gaiety. A great and overmastering desire for solitude descended upon her. She turned almost angrily to go.

But in the same instant the jester’s hand caught her own.

“Even so, lady,” he said. “But the magic of fools has led to paradise before now.”

She laughed out bitterly:

“A fool’s paradise!”

“Is ever green,” he said whimsically. “Faith, it’s no place at all for cynics. Shall we go hand in hand to find it then–in case you miss the way?”

She laughed again at the quaint adroitness of his speech. But her lips were curiously unsteady, and she found the darkness very comforting. There was no moon, and the sky was veiled. She suffered the strong clasp of his fingers about her own without protest. What did it matter–for just one night?

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Wait till we get there!” murmured her companion. “We are just within the magic circle. Una has escaped from the lion.”

She felt turf beneath her feet, and once or twice the brushing of twigs against her hand. She began to have a faint suspicion as to whither he was leading her. But she would not ask a second time. She had yielded to his guidance, and though her heart fluttered strangely she would not seem to doubt. The dread of Sir Roland’s displeasure had receded to the back of her mind. Surely there was indeed magic abroad that night! It seemed diffused in the very air she breathed. In silence they moved along the dim grass path. From far away there came to them fitfully the sound of music, remote and wonderful, like straying echoes of paradise. A soft wind stirred above them, lingering secretly among opening leaves. There was a scent of violets almost intoxicatingly sweet.