The Lure of the Mask, Harold MacGrath [best beach reads of all time .txt] 📗

the club. Two days went by without a sign; then the blue letter came.

I surrender. The most fatal thing in life is curiosity. It has the
power to lead us into all manner of trouble. And I have my share of
curiosity. Remember, you never would have found me. I may dwell in
a garret; I may be hideous; perhaps nothing remains to me but my
voice. Whatever you have painted me in your imagination, I tell you
that I shall prove directly the opposite. And now the terms. And if
you do not follow them confidently and blindly, your dinner will
grow cold in the carriage. Dinner will be at eight, February first.
At seven a carriage will call for you. The messenger will blindfold
you. He will then proceed to the club and take the dinner, and
bring you here. Be warned! If you so much as lift the corner of the
bandage, the romance will end then and there. It is necessary to
enforce these conditions, but it is not necessary to explain why. I
realize that I am doing something very foolish and unwise. But, as
you say, I am a woman who has seen much of the world. Thus I have
my worldly side. I shall use it as a buffer.

"Blindfolded!" Hillard scrubbed his chin. All these precautions! Who was she? What was she? An ordinary young woman, full of mischief, or was she what he hoped, a real mystery? He was well on the way to find out. Since there was no escape, blindfolded he would go.

At half after six, on the night of the first of February, then, he began to dress. It was some time since he had taken such particular care.

"The signore seems in high spirits to-night," observed Giovanni, as he laid out the linen.

"Man, I'm happy and greatly excited. Do you recollect the lady who sang under my window? I am going to meet her to-night. The mystery will be a mystery no longer."

"Who is she?" asked Giovanni sharply. It was rarely he asked a question with such directness.

But his master was too excited to note it. "On my word, I don't know who she is, Giovanni. She has written such charming letters! She may be only a singer; she may be a Russian princess in exile; she may be an adventuress of the most formidable type; she may be an American girl. One thing, she is not English. English women as I have found them lack the essential spirit of adventure."

"Ah!" Giovanni stroked his lips doubtfully. "It is not like the signore to plunge blindly into adventures like this."

"The very word, blindly. I go blindfolded, amico. What do you think of that?"

"Blindfolded?" Giovanni was horrified. "It is a trap!" he cried. "They will assassinate you! No, you shall not go! In Rome, at the carnivals, it is an old game. They will rob you."

"You are dreaming. This is America; things are not done that way here. And nothing now can turn me aside." Hillard was all the while finishing his toilet.

"I suppose not. But blindfolded!"

"Take the number of the cab as I get in. If anything should happen, give the number to the police."

Giovanni, with a sharp movement of the hands, expressed his resignation to the worst. He knew the futility of arguing with his master. But he followed him down to the hall and tied on the bandage himself. He was honest about it, too, for Hillard could see nothing. Then the messenger-boy took him by the hand and led him to the carriage. As the two were climbing in, Giovanni spoke rapidly in his native tongue.

"There is no number on the carriage!"

"Too late to bother now."

The carriage rolled off toward the club, where the dinner, hot and smoking, was taken on.

"Joinin' th' Elks?" asked the boy, when they were well under way once more.

"No, it's a séance. They are going to call up my fate round a table."

"Huh? Aw, go-wan! Dey don't call up no ghosts wit' French cider and hot boids." The boy relapsed into silence.

Hillard tried to follow the turns of the carriage, but these were too many; and so he resigned himself to become totally lost. By and by the carriage stopped.

"Dis is where we alights, me loid!" the boy jeered. "An' no lookin', mind."

Hillard found the carriage steps and landed safely. He stood for a moment, listening. They were in a quiet part of the city; no elevated or surface cars were near. He was assured that the location was exclusive. Garrets are not to be found in quiet places.

"Look out fer th' steps," said the boy, again taking Hillard by the hand.

"And you be careful of that basket."

"I ain't lettin' it drop any."

Winding steps, thought the blindfolded man. He could recollect none. It seemed to him that they stood there five minutes before the door opened. When it did, the boy passed in the basket and resolutely pushed Hillard into the hall. The door closed gently, and the adventure was begun. Whither would it lead him?

"Take off the bandage the signore may now," said a voice in broken English.

"Thanks!" He tore the handkerchief from his eyes and blinked. The hall was so dimly lighted that he could see nothing distinctly.

"The signore's coat and hat."

He passed over these articles, shook the wrinkles from his trousers, smoothed his chin, and stood at attention. The maid eyed him with abundant approval, then knocked timidly on the door leading to the drawing-room. He was sure of one thing: this was some millionaire's home. What if he should see in the drawing-room a party of his intimate friends, ready to plague and jest? He shuddered. He never had entertained such an appalling probability.

"Avanti!" called a soft voice from within.

Hillard gathered in his courage, opened the door and stepped inside. A single lamp in a far corner drew his glance, which roved a moment later. On a divan near this lamp sat a woman in black. Only a patch of white throat could be seen, for her shoulders were not bare and her arms only to the elbows. Her back was turned squarely. He could see nothing of her face. But what a head! He caught his breath. It glowed like a copper-beech in the sunshine. What was it? There was something, something he could not see.

"Madame?" he faltered. He had had a gallant Italian phrase to turn for her benefit. He spoke English instead, and not very firmly.

The woman turned. Hillard took a step backward and blundered against a pedestal.

She was masked!


CHAPTER V

THE MASK


Masked! Only her mouth and chin were visible, and several little pieces of court-plaster effectually disguised these. There was a mystery. He to come blindfolded and she to wear a mask! Extraordinary! There was something more than a jest: she really did not wish to be known, and the reason lay far back of all this, beyond his grasp. He stood there dumfounded. She rose. The movement was elegant.

"And this," she said ironically, "is the gentleman who leaned out of the window?"

He brought all his faculties together, for he knew that he would need them in this encounter. "Supposing I had fallen out of it? Well, it could not have mattered. I should not have been more at your feet than I am now." This was very good, considering how dry his tongue was.

"If you had fallen out? I had not thought of that. A modern Ulysses, house-broken, and an itinerant siren! You had been wise to have stuffed your ears that night."

"My mythology is rusty. And I much prefer Penelope. She interests me vastly more than the ancient prize-fighter."

"But sit down, Mr. Hillard, sit down." The lady with the mask motioned him to a chair directly under the light. She wished to study his face while she talked.

Hillard reached the chair successfully enough, but he never could recollect how. He sat down as a bashful man sits down in a crowded ball-room, with his knees drawn in tightly and his feet at sympathetic angles. He knew that she would have the best of him in this engagement. All the bright things to say would come to him after he had gone home. It was far easier to write letters. That mask! One might as well converse with the Sphinx. His face was hers to study; her emotions would be wholly her own.

Presently she laughed with malice.

"You are not comfortable in that chair."

"That is true; and yet it is soft and roomy. I am uneasy. Perhaps you recall to my subconsciousness a period in my former existence on earth; or, if you will, one of my ancestors."

"I fail to understand."

"Well, a Hillard two hundred years ago had his head cut off by an ax. His executioner wore a mask."

"A mistake. Your ancestor should have been hanged."

"And I along with him, you would imply?"

"Are you not Irish? I have known Irishmen by the name of Hillard."

"They were in disguise. But I have a generous strain of Irish blood in me. Otherwise I shouldn't have had the courage to follow up an adventure like this."

"Thanks. The compliment is rather ambiguous."

"My compliments can not possibly be more ambiguous than your appearance. Surely, there will be an hour for unmasking."

"It has already begun, Mr. Hillard."

"So I am the one who is to be unmasked? Well, I have only the mask nature gave to me. I wish she had been more liberal. But I shall see what can be done with it."

"Is there any mask quite so terrible, quite so deceptive, as this very mask nature gives us? Can it not lie adroitly, break hearts, overthrow empires? You can judge a character by this mask sometimes, but never the working of the mind behind it." She resumed her seat on the divan.

"I wish I could read yours."

"And much good it would do you." She smiled, rather ruefully Hillard thought.

He took note of her teeth, and felt a sudden tinge of regret. One may disguise the face and hair, but the teeth are always the same. Two lower teeth on the right side appeared to be gone; the others were firm and glistening white. It was a pity, for a woman's teeth are as much her glory as her hair.

"I am curious to learn what you brought for dinner."

He enumerated the delicacies.

"You have evidently studied your Lucullus," she said.

Silence. The ruddy light on her hair fascinated him.

"What is it?" she demanded.

"Your hair," with a simplicity which silenced her. "You have the most beautiful hair I have ever seen."

"Thank you. And yet, for all you know, it may be a fine wig."

"If it is, I shall never be sure