Cruel as the grave
coupled with it. So Sybil at length discovered that her identity was
known, to some persons certainly--to how many she could not even
conjecture.
Suddenly she resolved to try an experiment. She turned to her partner
and inquired:
"Do you know me?"
"Not until you permit me to do so, Madam," answered the Black Prince,
very courteously.
"Your reply was worthy of a knight and prince! So I permit you to
recognize me," said Sybil.
"Then you are our beautiful hostess; and I am happy to greet you by your
real name, Mrs. Berners," said the Black Prince.
"Thanks," answered Sybil. "I saw that many persons knew me, and I wished
to ascertain whether you were among their number, and how you and others
found me out."
"Some diviner of spirits," laughed the Black Prince, "divined you, not
only _through_ but _by_ your costume, in its correspondence with your
character. And as soon as he made this discovery he hastened to
promulgate it. Then I, for one, perceived at once that the splendid
'Fire Queen' could be no other than a daughter of 'Berners of the
Burning Heart.' And now, Madam! am I permitted to introduce myself by
the name I bear in this humdrum world of reality, or has your
penetration already rendered such an introduction unnecessary?"
"It is unnecessary. I have just recognized--Captain Pendleton," replied
Sybil.
The captain bowed low. And then, to the "forward two" of the leader of
the band, he led his partner up to meet their _vis-a-vis_, to "balance,"
"pass," "change," and go through all the figures of the dance.
And so the dances succeeded each other to the end of the set. And then
Captain Pendleton led his beautiful partner back to her seat, and stood
talking with her until the music for the waltz commenced.
Then, having solicited her hand for that dance, and having ascertained
that she never waltzed, he bowed and withdrew to find a partner
elsewhere.
Very soon Sybil saw him whirling around the room with some one of the
many unknown flower girls that constituted so large a portion of the
company.
Soon after this she saw both her husband and her rival among the
waltzers; but they were not waltzing together. Edith the Fair was
whirling around and around the room in the arms of a hermit, while
Harold the Saxon was engaged with a pretty nun.
"They know me! they are cautious!" muttered Sybil, biting her lips with
suppressed fury; for their forbearance, which she called duplicity,
enraged her more than all their flirting had done.
And now she immediately put in execution the resolution that she had
formed in the earlier part of the evening. Seeing her new acquaintance
Death standing unemployed, she beckoned him to approach.
He came promptly.
"King of Terrors!" she said with assumed levity, "I do not waltz, but I
am tired of sitting here. Give me your arm to the other end of the room,
and even all around the room, perhaps."
"Spirit of Fire! it will not be the first time that I have had the honor
of waiting on you or following in your track," said Death, gallantly.
"True; Fire has often preceded Death as his agent," assented Sybil.
"Say rather, that Death has often followed Fire as her servant."
"Enough of this. We seem to be well paired, at least. Let us get up and
walk."
Death bowed and offered his arm, and Fire arose and took it. And they
walked around the room, keeping outside the circle of the waltzers and
near the seats by the walls. But as they walked, many exclamations of
admiration, wonder, and awe struck their ears.
"Splendid creature! She moves like a spirit or a flame," exclaimed one.
"What a contrast to her companion! She all life and light, he all
darkness and death."
"It looks, as they walk side by side, as if she had burned him up and
consumed him to a skeleton of charred bones," said another.
"Horrible! Hush!" imperatively commanded a young lady, whose will, if it
did not enforce silence, modified expression.
Meanwhile Fire and Death went three times around the room. Then Fire
paused near a little corner _tete-a-tete_ sofa, on which a young girl,
dressed as Janet Foster the little Puritan, was seated quite alone; and
turning to her escort, she said:
"I am tired and thirsty. I will take this vacant seat for a while and
trouble you to go and fetch me a glass of lemonade."
"With pleasure!" gallantly assented Death, starting off promptly and
zealously to execute her commands.
Sybil seated herself beside the young girl on the sofa, and laying her
hand upon her shoulder, whispered:
"Trix."
"There!" exclaimed the girl, starting. "Every one knows me, even you."
"Well, everybody knows me also, even you," said Sybil.
"It is very provoking."
"Very."
"When I had taken so much pains to disguise myself too."
"Yes, and I also."
"_You?_ Why you took the very means to reveal your self, wearing a dress
so perfectly adapted to your nature. Anybody might have known you,"
pouted Trix.
"Yes, anybody _might_ have known me; but I do not think that anybody
_would_ have done so, if it had not been for a certain 'expert' who,
detecting the 'correspondences,' as he calls them, divulged the secret
to the whole room," explained Sybil.
"Well, somebody found you out, and did it by the fitness of your costume
too. But as for me, nothing could be more opposite in character than
Janet Foster the Puritan maiden, and Beatrix Pendleton the wild
huntress. We are about as much alike as sage tea and sparkling hock.
Why, see here, Sybil; in order to throw every one off the track of me, I
took a character as unlike mine as it was possible to find, and yet I
have not succeeded in concealing my identity. And this has provoked me
to such an extent that I have left the dance."
"And so I find you sulking here. Well, Trix, I will tell you how they
found you out. You and I are known to be the two smallest women in the
whole neighborhood. After having found me out, through the divination of
a magician, it was easy to see that the other small woman must be you."
"Oh, I see; but it is perfectly exasperating!"
"So it is; but you may get some fun out of it yet, Trix, by turning the
tables upon them all."
"How? Tell me! I'll do anything to get the better of them."
"I cannot tell you now, for here comes my escort with my lemonade, and
this matter must remain a secret between you and me. But listen: in
fifteen minutes from this time slip away and go to my bedroom. You know
the way, and you will find it empty. I will join you there, and tell you
my plan," said Sybil, in a very low tone.
At that moment her escort arrived with the glass of lemonade.
Sybil received it from him with many thanks, and having offered it first
to her companion, who politely declined it, she drank it, sat the empty
glass upon the corner of the mantle-piece and then said:
"I will trouble you now, if you please, to take me back to my former
seat."
Death bowed and offered his arm. Fire arose, nodded to the little
Puritan on the sofa, took the arm of her escort, and walked away.
When she reached her old seat she dismissed her escort, and in a few
minutes, finding herself for the instant unobserved, she quietly slipped
away to her bed-chamber, where she found Beatrix Pendleton already
awaiting her.
First of all Sybil locked the door, to insure herself and her companion
from interruption. Then she went to the glass and took off her crown of
flame and her mask of gold gauze, and drew a long breath of relief as
she turned towards her companion, who started violently, exclaiming:
"Good Heaven, Sybil! how ghastly pale you look! You are ill!"
"Oh, no; only very weary," sighed Sybil, adding then, in explanation,
"You know these affairs are very fatiguing."
"Yes, I know, but not to that extent, when you have a house full of
trained servants to do everything. Why Sybil, you look as if your fiery
dress had burned you to a form of ashes, leaving only a shape that might
be blown away with a breath."
"Like another Creusa," answered Sybil, coldly. Then changing her tone,
she said, with assumed lightness, "Come, Trix, you want to see some fun,
and you shall see it. You and I are of about one size. We will therefore
exchange dresses. You shall be the Fire Queen and I will be the Puritan
maid. You can sustain the part you will take admirably, and upon
occasion can disguise your own voice or imitate mine. I shall do my best
to enact the little Puritan. But with all we can do to support the
characters, we shall puzzle people to the end of their wits. They will
not feel quite so sure now as they were an hour ago that I am the Fire
Queen, or you the Puritan maid. But they will not know who we are. Come,
what have you to say to this?"
"Why, that it is enchanting. I agree to your plan at once."
"All right, then. We have no time to lose. It is half-past ten o'clock
now. At twelve supper will be served, when all the guests will lay aside
their masks. So you see that we have but an hour and a half to effect
our change of dress and hoax our wise companions. Just before supper we
must slip up here again and change back, so that we may unmask at supper
in our proper disguises."
"All right!" exclaimed Trix, delighted with the plan.
"And there is one more caution I must give you. Keep out of the way of
my husband. He knows my character of Fire Queen, and if he should see
you near him in that dress, he would be sure to speak to you for me; and
if you should attempt to reply, no matter how well you might imitate my
voice, your speech would certainly betray you."
"All right! I will keep away from your husband, if I can; but how shall
I know him?"
"He is dressed as Harold the last of the Saxon Kings!"
"Oh! is _that_ Mr. Berners? And I never suspected it! I thought _that_
was some single man, desperately smitten with the charms of Edith the
Fair," continued Beatrix.
"Oh, yes, I dare say you thought, but you were mistaken. Edith the Fair
is our guest, Mrs. Blondelle. And she took the character of Edith to
support Mr. Berners in Harold, and to be true to these characters they
must act as they do; for Harold and Edith were lovers in history,"
explained Sybil, speaking calmly, though every word uttered by her
companion had seemed like a separate stab to her already deeply wounded
bosom.
"'Lovers in history' were they? I should take them to be lovers in
mystery now, if I did not know them to be Mr. Berners and Mrs.
Blondelle," persisted Beatrix, all unconscious of the blows she was
raining upon Sybil's overburdened heart. "However," she added, "I shall
keep out of the way of both, for if _he_ knew your disguise, be sure
that _she_ knew it also; and of course both, in daily intercourse with
you, know your voice equally well. And if either of them should take me
for you and speak to me for you, and I should attempt to reply, I should
be sure to betray myself. So I will keep away from both, if I can. If
not, if they should come suddenly upon me and speak to me, I shall not
answer, but shall turn around and walk silently away as if I were
offended with them."
"Yes, do that; that will be excellent," assented Sybil.
"And now, how are you going to support my character, or rather my
disguise?" inquired Beatrix.
"By being very silent and demure as Janet Foster; or, if need should be,
by carrying on your mood of sullenness as Beatrix Pendleton, masked."
"That will do," agreed Beatrix, with a smile.
All the while they had been speaking, they had also been taking off
their fancy dresses. No time was lost, and the exchange of costume was
quickly effected.
"Now," said Sybil, "another favor."
"Name it."
"Let me go down first. Then do you wait ten minutes here before you
follow me. And when you enter the room keep away from me, as well as
from my husband and my guest."