Out of my mind slipped the previous adventures of the evening. I forgot, temporarily, the beautiful unknown at Mouquin's. I forgot the sardonic-lipped stranger I had met in Friard's. I forgot everything save the little ticket that had accidentally slipped into my package, and which announced that some one had rented a blue domino. And here was a Blue Domino at my side. Just simply dying to have me talk to her! "I am madly in love with you," I began. "I have followed you often; I have seen you in your box at the opera; I have seen you whirl up Fifth Avenue in your fine barouche; and here at last I meet you!" I clasped my hands passionately. "My beautiful barouche! My box at the opera!" the girl mimicked. "What a cheerful Ananias you are!" "Thou art the most enchanting creature in all the universe. Thou art even as a turquoise, a patch of radiant summer sky, eyes of sapphire, lips--" "Archaic, very archaic," she interrupted. "Disillusioned in ten seconds!" I cried dismally. "How could you?" She laughed. "Have you no romance? Can you not see the fitness of things? If you have not a box at the opera, you ought at least to make believe you have. History walks about us, and you call the old style archaic! That hurts!" "Methinks, Sir Monk--" "There! That's more like it. By my halidom, that's the style!" "Odds bodkins, you don't tell me!" There was a second ripple of laughter from behind the mask. It was rare music. "I _could_ fall in love with you!" "There once was a Frenchman who said that as nothing is impossible, let us believe in the absurd. I might be old enough to be your grandmother,"--lightly. "Perish the thought!" "Perish it, indeed!" "The mask is the thing!" I cried enthusiastically. "You can make love to another man's wife--" "Or to your own, and nobody is the wiser,"--cynically. "We are getting on." "Yes, we are getting on, both in years and in folly. What are you doing in a monk's robe? Where is your motley, gay fool?" "I have laid it aside for the night. On such occasions as this, fools dress as wise men, and wise men as fools; everybody goes about in disguise." "How would you go about to pick out the fools?"--curiously. "Beginning with myself--" "Thy name is also Candor!" "Look at yonder Cavalier. He wabbles like a ship in distress, in the wild effort to keep his feet untangled from his rapier. I'll wager he's a wealthy plumber on week-days. Observe Anne of Austria! What arms! I'll lay odds that her great-grandmother took in washing. There's Romeo, now, with a pair of legs like an old apple tree. The freedom of criticism is mine to-night! Did you ever see such ridiculous ideas of costume? For my part, the robe and the domino for me. All lines are destroyed; nothing is recognizable. My, my! There's Harlequin, too, walking on parentheses." The Blue Domino laughed again. "You talk as if you had no friends here,"--shrewdly.