"Two of her oldest friends, through an unaccountable mistake, turned into enemies. Both insist that under cover of a mask at the last _veglione_ she insulted them. Unfortunately, her best friends are not kept by their actual knowledge of her from thinking it just possible she might desire to amuse herself with getting a claw into them. She has more than once given offense to her friends by putting them into her books. But Antonia swore to me that she was innocent, and begged me to convince De Brézé. The villa she lives in is his property, and he has requested her to vacate it. The other aggrieved one, General Costanzi, she fears may succeed in preventing the publication of her next novel by threat of a libel suit." "Well, that sounds bad. But what do they say she's done?" "The poor woman doesn't even know what she is supposed to have said; insulted them is all she can gather. Both maintain that though she tried to alter her voice they recognized her, and will not accept her word for it that she wore no such disguise as they describe. Which reminds me that the offender, or the offender's double, for I have an idea there were two masked alike, came into your box early in the evening with a companion. You have not forgotten--that black domino with the crow's beak?" Aurora jumped on her seat with a cry of "Goodness gracious!" "What is it?" he asked, looking at her more attentively. She appeared aghast. She did not answer at once, tensely trying to think. "Well," she finally exclaimed, relaxing into limpness, "I've been and gone and done it!" And as he waited-- "I guess I did that insulting," she added, and wiped her brow. He thought for a moment that she might be acting out a joke, but in the next accepted her perturbation as genuine. "Can't you see through it even now I've told you?" she asked. He shook his head. "Did you suppose I didn't really know those two who came into the box, the one who roared and the one who cawed? Well, I'm a better actress than I supposed." "But--" "And did you really suppose I was going home to bed just as the fun was at its height? There again you're simpler than I thought. Land! Don't I wish now that I had gone home!" "And you--" "We'd heard so much from everybody of the pranks they play at these vegliones of yours that we wanted to play one, too--we wanted to intrigue you and a lot of other people. The trouble seems to be we did it too well. Land! I wish I hadn't done it! I wish Heaven I'd consulted you, or some one--We hatched it all up with Italo and Clotilde." "Italo and Clotilde!"