Produced by Rick Niles, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net _The_ LURE OF THE MASK _By_ HAROLD MAC GRATH WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY HARRISON FISHER AND KARL ANDERSON INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS COPYRIGHT 1908 PRESS OF BRAUN WORTH & CO. BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS BROOKLYN, N.Y. TO MY FELLOW TRAVELER AND GENTLE CRITIC CONTENTS I THE VOICE IN THE FOG II OBJECT, MATRIMONY III MADAME ANGOT IV BLINDFOLDED V THE MASK VI INTO THE FOG AGAIN VII THE TOSS OF A COIN VIII WHAT MERRIHEW FOUND IX MRS. SANDFORD WINKS X CARABINIERI XI THE CITY IN THE SEA XII A BOX OF CIGARS XIII KITTY ASKS QUESTIONS XIV GREY VEILS XV MANY NAPOLEONS XVI O'MALLY SUGGESTS XVII GIOVANNI XVIII THE ARIA FROM IL TROVATORE XIX TWO GENTLEMEN FROM VERONA XX KITTY DROPS A BANDBOX XXI AN INVITATION TO A BALL XXII TANGLES XXIII THE DENOUEMENT XXIV MEASURE FOR MEASURE XXV FREE XXVI THE LETTER XXVII BELLAGGIO THE LURE OF THE MASK CHAPTER I THE VOICE IN THE FOG Out of the unromantic night, out of the somber blurring January fog, came a voice lifted in song, a soprano, rich, full and round, young, yet matured, sweet and mysterious as a night-bird's, haunting and elusive as the murmur of the sea in a shell: a lilt from _La Fille de Madame Angot_, a light opera long since forgotten in New York. Hillard, genuinely astonished, lowered his pipe and listened. To sit dreaming by an open window, even in this unlovely first month of the year, in that grim unhandsome city which boasts of its riches and still accepts with smug content its rows upon rows of ugly architecture, to sit dreaming, then, of red-tiled roofs, of cloud-caressed hills, of terraced vineyards, of cypresses in their dark aloofness, is not out of the natural order of things; but that into this idle and pleasant dream there should enter so divine a voice, living, feeling, pulsing, this was not ordinary at all. And Hillard was glad that the room was in darkness. He rose eagerly and peered out. But he saw no one. Across the street the arc-lamp burned dimly, like an opal in the matrix, while of architectural outlines not one remained, the fog having kindly obliterated them.