All four slipped down into the vast ballroom early. The room was groined and arched, with Corinthian columns supporting its galleries. It suggested a Greek temple, but a temple devoted to the gods of youth and joy. Its white and gold was hung with countless lights, wreathed, grouped, scattered in curves and singly like electric blossoms in a hanging garden. No plants broke the white lines of the columns and arches, but garlands of unbelievable orchids fell carelessly from the balconies, and chains of Killarney roses and ferns stretched from point to point, filling the air with sweetness. The orchestra was placed behind the diaphanous golden screen built for it. It was a screen of white agate, cut into lace-like fragility in designs of ferns and blossoms, like point lace; the light shone through the agate with a delicate warmth that made the flowers alive, as if they really were the white jasmine they represented, blooming in the moonlight. Framing the screen was a golden fantasy of musical instruments, wrought in metal. “It looks the way music sounds!” cried Beth rapturously, seeing the golden screen with its agate carving for the first time illuminated. At nine o’clock the orchestra began playing softly behind its screen. Presently a fanfare of trumpets sounded beyond the ballroom, the doors were thrown open, the orchestra burst into splendid music, which Beth did not know was one of the Liszt Hungarian rhapsodies, and a procession began to enter. First came solemn men in a queer uniform, with staves; these were not masked. They represented the beef-eaters, the yeomen of the Royal Guard, who attended upon the sovereign at state banquets. “Those are just men, hired,” said Dirk, craning his neck eagerly to see the pageant. “Jolly! If there isn’t Tim marching in with them! Daddy got him in as a beef-eater! Wait till I get at him to-morrow!” Next came Mr. Cortlandt, walking alone. He too, being the host, was unmasked. “I never knew father was such a peach!” cried Alys, moved beyond herself by the spectacle of her father in white satin, embroidered in blues and golds, a blue velvet cloak swinging from one shoulder, a plumed hat carried jauntily under his left arm. Jewels blazed from his hands and throat, the clasp of his cloak, his knee and shoe buckles; the collar of an order hung around his neck and a blazing star of diamonds fell from it upon his chest. “He’s just as handsome as he can be!” cried Beth. “All the time, I mean, but now he’s handsomer than he can be--I mean he doesn’t seem possible!” She was so excited that Natalie caught her by the arm. “I’m afraid you’ll jump over the rail,” Natalie laughed, but her own eyes were flashing and she looked as though she, too, found the pageant almost too much for her.