"Eyes without their context mean nothing!" she said, and then I knew the woman was Christina, for that was the very thing she had once said to Ariadne to tease her. She evidently thinks it good enough to say twice. "Come!" she said to George. "Speak to me, say anything to me that the hour and the mood permit. I want to hear how a poet makes love!" "Madame!" said George, bowing. I think he was a little shocked, but after all, if he will give a masked ball, what can he expect? Only I had no idea that Christina could have done it so well! "Come," she said again, tapping her foot to show that she had grown impatient. "Come, a madrigal--a _ballade_, in any kind of china!" I fancy it was then that George began to suspect that it wasn't Lady Scilly. She couldn't have managed that about ballads and lyrics. He asked her if she would lift up the lace of her mask a little--just a little. "No, no, I dare not!" she cried out. "There is a hobgoblin called Ben in the room--a sort of lubber fiend who loves to play pranks on people. Why on earth don't you send that boy to school?" I could not help giggling. George looked cross, for this was personal, and he took the first chance of leaving the mask's side. There wasn't a buzz of talk in the room, no, not at all, for everybody was trying so hard to say something clever and appropriate, that they mostly didn't say anything, but mooned about, trying to look as if they were enjoying themselves hugely, and secretly bored to death all the time. The only time people are really gay, I observe, is at a funeral, or at _Every man_, or somewhere where they particularly shouldn't be jolly. I was thinking sadly about my dear Mother, and wondering where she was, when I ran against a Frenchman, a real Frenchman, and he asked me where was the mistress of the house, and that showed me that other people thought about her too; I didn't answer for a moment, and he went on in a kind of dreamy voice-- "I was brought here to see an English interior----" "Well," I said. "It's inside four walls, isn't it?" "_Mon Dieu, mademoiselle_," said he, "I had made to myself another idea of _le home Anglais_--the fireside--the _maîtresse de la maison_ with her keys depending from her girdle--the children--the sacred children, standing round her--_bébé_ crowing----" "There isn't any baby!" I said, "and a good thing too! But this is a party, don't you see, and we are all playing the fool, and we shall be sensible to-morrow, and if you will excuse me, I am one of the sacred children, and I am just looking for my mother's knee to go and stand against."