"What a bore you will think me, Mrs. Lascelles," said he. "One is so apt to fancy everybody is interested in what one cares for oneself." "I am," she answered, with her brightest, kindest look. "I always want to know everything about people I like. When they leave the stage I follow them in fancy behind the scenes, and I _do_ think I should feel hurt if I believed they were really so different without their rouge, wigs, padding, and false calves." "It's not 'Out of sight, out of mind' with you, eh?" observed the young gentleman, in considerable trepidation. To do him justice, he saw his opportunity, but could make no more of it than the above. "Do you think it is?" she returned. "And what would one be worth if it was? How little people know each other. We all seem to go about with masks for faces. I dare say mine is like the rest, but I would take it off in a minute if I was asked." Another opening for Goldthred. He felt full of sentiment, up to his eye-lids; was, indeed, choking with it, but somehow it wouldn't come out. "I've never been to a regular masquerade," said he simply; "I should think it was capital fun." Miss Ross, whom nothing escaped, whatever she had on hand, saw his discomfiture, and came to the rescue. "You're at one every day of your life," she broke in. "Rose is quite right. Nobody speaks the whole truth, except Mr. Groves, who has just told me I'm hideous. You know you did, and you think you're a capital judge. I shall not forgive you till after coffee. I must say I can't agree with Rose about one's friends. As for mine, with a few brilliant exceptions, the less I see of them the better I like it." "If that's the case, Jin, we'll go up-stairs," said the hostess, rising slowly and gracefully, as she fastened the last button of her glove. "Uncle Joseph," she added, with her sweetest smile, "you're at home, you know. You must take care of Mr. Goldthred;" and so swept out, keeping the blue eyes Goldthred so admired steadily averted from his eager face. He returned to the table after shutting the door quite crest-fallen and disappointed. He had counted on one more look to carry him through the tedious half-hour that must intervene ere he could see her again, and she probably knew this as well as he did. Ladies are sometimes exceedingly liberal of such small encouragements; sometimes, as if from mere caprice, withhold them altogether. No doubt they adapt their treatment to the symptoms shown by the sufferer.