"Oh, nothing madam," was the retort accompanied by a curtsey of mock humility. "Everybody knows Lady Anastasia's pleasant way of drawing off when she has won and the luck's beginning to turn against her." "I despise your insinuations madam," loftily replied Lady Anastasia, her face where it was not rouged turning the colour of putty. "So common a creature as Mistress Salisbury--I prefer not to soil my lips by addressing you as _Sally_ Salisbury--I think that is the name by which you are best known among the Cheapside 'prentices and my lord's lackeys--ought to feel vastly honoured by being permitted to sit at the same table with a woman of my rank." "Your _rank_? Indeed, you're quite right. It _is_ rank. Foh!" The handsome face was expressive of contemptuous abhorrence and her gesture emphasised the expression. Lady Anastasia was goaded to fury. "Why, you impudent, brazen-faced Drury Lane trull! A month at Bridewell would do you good, you----" Her ladyship's vocabulary of abuse was pretty extensive but it was cut short. A dice box with the ivories inside flew across the table hurled with the full strength of a vigorous shapely arm. This was Sally Salisbury's retort. A corner of a dice cut the lady's lip and a drop of blood trickled on to her chin. Beyond herself with rage, Lady Anastasia seized a wine glass--a somewhat dangerous projectile, for the wine glasses of the time were large and thick and heavy--and would have dashed it at her antagonist but one of the players, a man, grasped her wrist and held it. "Let her ladyship have her chance. She's entitled to it. A duel at a masquerade between two women of fashion! Why, it'll be the talk of the town for a whole week," and Sally Salisbury laughed derisively. But so vulgar a _fracas_ was not to the taste of Lady Anastasia's friends, besides which the attendants were alarmed and ran to prevent further disturbance. They abstained, however, from interfering with Sally Salisbury. Her ungovernable temper and her fear of nothing were well known. If she once let herself go there was no telling where she would stop. At this moment, however, her temper was under perfect control and indeed she was rather enjoying herself. She rose, pushed away her chair with a backward kick to give room for her ample hoops, and curtseying low to the company marched out of the room without so much as a glance at her rival who was on the verge of hysterics.