"You didn't expect to meet me here?" asked the old man, as if otherwise it should be the most natural thing in the world. After that they could only unite in suppressing their astonishment. "It's extremely interesting," he went on, "extremely! I've been here ever since the exercises began, and I have not only been very greatly amused, but greatly instructed. It seems to me the key to a great many anomalies in the history of this wonderful people." If Mr. Waters took this philosophical tone about the Carnival, it was not possible for Colville to take any other. "And have you been able to divine from what you have seen here," he asked gravely, "the grounds of Savonarola's objection to the Carnival?" "Not at all," said the old man promptly. "I have seen nothing but the most harmless gaiety throughout the evening." Colville hung his head. He remembered reading once in a passage from Swedenborg, that the most celestial angels had scarcely any power of perceiving evil. "Why aren't you young people dancing?" asked Mr. Waters, in a cheerful general way, of Mrs. Bowen's party. Colville was glad to break the silence. "Mrs. Bowen doesn't approve of dancing at vegliones." "No?--why not?" inquired the old man, with invincible simplicity. Mrs. Bowen smiled her pretty, small smile below her mask. "The company is apt to be rather mixed," she said quietly. "Yes," pursued Mr. Waters; "but you could dance with one another. The company seems very well behaved." "Oh, quite so," Mrs. Bowen assented. "Shortly after I came," said Mr. Waters, "one of the masks asked me to dance. I was really sorry that my age and traditions forbade my doing so. I tried to explain, but I'm afraid I didn't make myself quite clear." "Probably it passed for a joke with her," said Colville, in order to say something. "Ah, very likely; but I shall always feel that my impressions of the Carnival would have been more definite if I could have danced. Now, if I were a young man like you----" Imogene turned and looked at Colville through the eye-holes of her mask; even in that sort of isolation he thought her eyes expressed surprise. "It never occurred to you before that I was a young man," he suggested gravely. She did not reply. After a little interval, "Imogene," asked Mrs. Bowen, "would you like to dance?" Colville was astonished. "The veglione has gone to your head, Mrs. Bowen," he tacitly made his comment. She had spoken to Imogene, but she glanced at him as if she expected him to be grateful to her for this stroke of liberality. "What would be the use?" returned the girl. Colville rose. "After my performance in the Lancers, I can't expect you to believe me; but I really do know how to waltz." He had but to extend his arms, and she was hanging upon his shoulder, and they were whirling away through a long orbit of delight to the girl. "Oh, why have you let me do you such injustice?" she murmured intensely. "I never shall forgive myself."