She was as expensively dressed as Clytie, but without Clytie’s taste. Mrs. Page’s magnificence was barbaric, untamed to any harmony of color, though effective in its very violence. She had not left her diamonds at home. She blazed in them. Tall, dark, well-formed and deep-breasted, not even the loosely hanging folds of a Chinese costume could hide the luxuriance with which Nature had endowed her figure. She was laughing with abandon, reveling in the freedom of the moment, when Granthope touched her on the shoulder and whispered: "Violet!" She turned to him and stared, puzzled by his well-disguised face. "Who are you?" "I know more about you than any one here!" "Good heavens!" she laughed, "what do you know about me?" "Shall I tell you?" "Not here, for mercy’s sake! Don’t give me away in respectable society, please. Come out in the hall where we won’t be eavesdropped." She took his arm energetically and romped him out to the staircase. The masks and costumes had let loose all her folly. She effervesced in giggles. "Let’s go up-stairs in the library," she proposed. "We have the run of the house to-night, and nobody’ll be there. I want to see if I can’t guess who you are. I haven’t the least idea who you are, but I believe you’re going to be nice." She tapped him on the cheek playfully with her fan, then picked up her skirts and ran up-stairs, giving him a glance of red silk hose, as she went. He was still quivering with the excitement of Clytie’s smile, still warm from her nearness, still full of her, though he would not share her wholesale glances to her throng of admirers. He was still rapt with the exhilaration her smile had kindled, he still held her little perfumed heart. As he followed Mrs. Page up-stairs he smelt again of the gold bottle. The fragrant odor fired him anew. He grew perfervid. Mrs. Page, unmasked, was awaiting him in the library. When they came down ten minutes later, he made way to where Clytie sat, talking to the gentleman with the reddish pointed beard and plum-colored garments. Seeing Granthope approach, she turned to her companion, saying: "Would you mind getting me a glass of water, Blanchard? This mask is fearfully warm. I hope we won’t have to keep them on much longer." Cayley left to obey her and Granthope took his place by her chair. She looked up at him quickly, and said, in a low voice: "I think you had better give me back my scent-bottle, please." A pang smote him. He felt the shock of reproach in her voice, knowing what she meant immediately, though he rallied to say, faint-heartedly: "Why, I haven’t learned how to open it yet." "I’m afraid you’ll never learn." She did not look at him. "What do you mean?" he asked, summoning all his courage. "I thought you had given it to me." She kept her eyes away from him. "If I did, I must ask it back, now."