Lady Bell well knew that Captain Fane would be reckoned a most unsuitable match, the poorest _parti_ for a beauty, a Lady Bell, a young widow who had begun her career of worldly prosperity very fairly, and had then taken the world by storm. Was she to end by wantonly squandering her advantages, for which she had paid dearly enough in her day; was she to slight the great matches that might be in store for her, the coronets, the amorous squires, richer than Trevor of Trevor Court, the exquisite beaux like Sir George Waring, for so sober and in the world’s eye so insignificant a figure? Was she, as a lovely widow, rather to copy the example of the Duchess of Manchester with her Irishman, of whom all the world had talked, or that of the Duchess of Leinster with her Scotchman, of whom all the world was talking, in stooping to confer grace, than follow the lead of Lady Waldegrave in aiming as high as the gusty neighbourhood of a throne? Lady Bell laughed in mockery of herself a little hysterically. She made a feint of trying to find time and heart to scold herself, and at the same time she blushed like a rose at the mere thought, and trembled with a newly-discovered happiness. CHAPTER XVI. THE MASQUED BALL AS IT BEGAN IN REALITY. Lady Bell was coy. She was provoking, she was wilful, and she was perverse, in the strange gladness which was so dashed with emotion, but of which she strove hard, and almost succeeded, to show only the frolicksome side. “I shan’t tell you what I am going to wear, Captain Fane,” Lady Bell said, “and you are not to tell whether you are to be a peasant or a prince. I shall put my fingers in my ears if you do. I mean to keep my secret. I tell you all the fun will be in finding each other out—as if I could not find him out among a thousand,” she said to herself, while her glance fell beneath his reproachful gaze, “and if he should be too stupid to guess me under a disguise,” she added—always for her own satisfaction—“why I can take off my mask and enlighten him at any moment.” Captain Fane was forced to submit, thinking in some measure, as his mistress thought, “Well, the information beforehand would only be a precaution to save time. However crowded the rooms may be, she can never elude me.” But neither Lady Bell nor Captain Fane had ever been at a masquerade ball. On the lady and gentleman’s separate arrivals, after a way had been made through the excited crowd which pressed about the doors and pushed into the lobby of the club itself, and was driven back by watchmen, in order to witness the spectacle of the season, the scene which presented itself was one of wild disorder.