It was a morning of nervous attent, through which they heard feet come and go in the apartment overhead. Between the promise to the widow and their own feelings, there was hardly anything that could be said of what they wished to say, so they spent the time listening to the lad, who told them tales of his imagined people behind the masks. It would be about the noon-glass when a man knocked, who said he was the butler of the Baroness Stampalia to look at a costume; coming so quickly to the door that Rodvard and Lalette were without time to don head-masks, and sought refuge in the bedroom. This was as well; the butler examined attentively everything in the outer room. Not long later the widow returned, narrowing her eyes over the tale of the Stampalia butler. “She has her own dressmaker. Could he have been a spy?” Then to the couple; “You see, you obeyed my injunction as to thought, and were protected.” Rodvard would have made a point of this, but Dame Domijaiek gave him no time, turning to Lalette, with; “Touching your mother, my dear, I think you have not to be troubled. I have not seen her myself, but the gossip is that Count Cleudi has most generously sent her a present of money, which is an evidence of the working of the God of love, though the instrument may not be what we would desire.” Rodvard, whom this style of discourse filled with a discomfort he could not readily assay, asked about Remigorius. The dame had visited his shop; she produced a chit from the doctor which confirmed all Rodvard’s discomforts on the matter of Lalette, for it commanded him in guarded words to come at once, and without her. Lalette did not understand when he showed her the paper, but she said he must clearly go. Dame Domijaiek added her voice to the same purport, saying that if Rodvard were needed to go elsewhere, Lalette would be the safer there for hiding alone. From a cabinet she brought some of the false hair used on masks and skillfully affixed a fur of it to Rodvard’s face, while Lalette, suddenly gay, changed the dress of his head and added a ribbon that make him quite a different person. He kissed her farewell; the widow simpered as though it were she who had been saluted, and said she would offer an answerable prayer to the God of love for the success of his going. 7 SEDAD VIX: A NEW LIFE