Claude pulled off his mask and stood, handsome and challenging, waiting for her to follow suit. He was very good to look upon. Handsome, graceful and proud, there was just enough disdain in his perfect manner to make every woman adore him and long to enslave his flawless form. He had wonderful blue eyes, a delicate mouth, a fine nose and a penetrating sympathetic voice. Great ease, great daring and great energy of animal passion gave him a hundred opportunities to show his fine points to excellent advantage. To qualities that almost made riches superfluous, riches were added. No wonder he seemed to be a darling of the gods. Janet’s pulse was distinctly quickened by the telling exterior of this dazzling young man. And when she unfastened her domino and met his glance with her fearless gray eyes, his thrilling moment came. He was not greatly impressed with her looks, his social training having biased him towards more fashionable types of beauty. Yet a magnetic ecstacy set him on fire and sent rapturous messages throbbing along his nerves. It was an enthralling moment, one that seemed mysteriously to link up his being with other blissful moments in previous existences. Strange! Each time that he experienced this emotion anew, he was sure it was unique, sure it was not in this life that he had experienced it before. Stranger still, though it was as deep as the full flooded river of life itself, it was as transitory as an electric spark or a flash of lightning. The moment was poignant, intoxicating, miraculous; yet by no fraction of an instant could it be prolonged. Indeed, within a second or two, Claude and Janet were chatting about a good many matters which did not bear in the remotest way upon this magnetizing spark. Still, they chatted with an excited recklessness, and as if their essences were held together by a subtle force, a force whose irresistible urgency they would neither have dared to acknowledge nor wished to dispute. *V* Steeped in the enjoyment of the moment, Janet hardly noticed that Robert had tacitly resigned his watchful care of her to Claude Fontaine. She began to neglect her fortune telling duties as one result of this displacement, for Claude’s appropriation of her time grew as his visits became more frequent. Nor did he share her compunction on this score. Far from doing so, he cajoled her into dancing with him again and again. In the intervals, he escorted her from one end of the reception floor to the other, introducing her to the groups he considered worth while. Thus she shared (much more fully than she desired to) the curiosity which his brilliant presence excited and the gossip which it was everywhere a signal for. "Here’s an interesting stunt," said Claude to his partner.