Colville felt the meanness of a man who has betrayed his trust, and his self-contempt was the sharper because the trust had been as tacit and indefinite as it was generous. The effect of Mrs. Bowen's absence was as if she had indignantly flown, and left him to the consequences of his treachery. He sat down rather blankly with Imogene to wait for her return; it was the only thing they could do. It had grown very hot. The air was thick with dust. The lights burned through it as through a fog. "I believe I will take off my mask," she said. "I can scarcely breathe." "No, no," protested Colville; "that won't do." "I feel faint," she gasped. His heart sank. "Don't," he said incoherently. "Come with me into the vestibule, and get a breath of air." He had almost to drag her through the crowd, but in the vestibule she revived, and they returned to their place again. He did not share the easy content with which she recognised the continued absence of Mrs. Bowen. "Why they must be lost. But isn't it perfect sitting here and watching the maskers?" "Perfect," said Colville distractedly. "Don't you like to make romances about the different ones?" It was on Colville's tongue to say that he had made all the romances he wished for that evening, but he only answered, "Oh, very." "Poor Mrs. Bowen," laughed the girl. "It will be such a joke on her, with her punctilious notions, getting lost from her _protegee_ at a Carnival ball! I shall tell every one." "Oh no, don't," said Colville, in horror that big mask scarcely concealed. "Why not?" "It wouldn't be at all the thing." "Why, are you becoming Europeanised too?" she demanded. "I thought you went in for all sorts of unconventionalities. Recollect your promise. You must be as impulsive as I am." Colville, staring anxiously about in every direction, made for the first time the reflection that most young girls probably conform to the proprieties without in the least knowing why. "Do you think," he asked, in desperation, "that you would be afraid to be left here a moment while I went about in the crowd and tried to find them?" "Not at all," she said. But she added, "Don't be gone long." "Oh no," he answered, pulling off his mask. "Be sure not to move from here on any account." He plunged into the midst of the crowd that buffeted him from side to side as he struck against its masses. The squeaking and gibbering masks mocked in their falsetto at his wild-eyed, naked face thrusting hither and thither among them. "I saw your lady wife with another gentleman," cried one of them, in a subtle misinterpretation of the cause of his distraction. The throng had immensely increased; the clowns and harlequins ran shrieking up and down, and leaped over one another's heads. It was useless. He went back to Imogene with a heart-sickening fear that she too might have vanished. But she was still there.