He had found the duke's domino and mask in the carriage. The mask was of black velvet--the domino of violet satin. He put them both on, and suddenly remembered that he was without arms. He thought, however, he should easily procure some weapon at Monceaux. As he approached, he found it was not a weapon that he needed, but courage. There passed in his mind a terrible contest. Pride and humanity struggled against each other, and, from time to time, he represented to himself his friends in prison, condemned to a cruel and infamous death. As the carriage entered the courtyard of Monceaux, he murmured, "Already!" However, the carriage stopped, the door was opened, he must alight. The prince's private carriage and coachman had been recognized, and all the servants overwhelmed him with attentions. Gaston did not remark it--a kind of mist passed before his eyes--he presented his card. It was the custom then for both men and women to be masked: but it was more frequently the women than the men who went to these reunions unmasked. At this period women spoke not only freely, but well, and the mask hid neither folly nor inferiority of rank, for the women of that day were all witty, and if they were handsome, they were soon titled: witness, the Duchesse de Chateauroux and the Comtesse Dubarry. Gaston knew no one, but he felt instinctively that he was among the most select society of the day. Among the men were Novilles, Brancas, Broglie, St. Simon, and Biron. The women might be more mixed, but certainly not less spirituelles, nor less elegant. No one knew how to organize a fete like the regent. The luxury of good taste, the profusion of flowers, the lights, the princes and ambassadors, the charming and beautiful women who surrounded him, all had their effect on Gaston, who now recognized in the regent, not only a king, but a king at once powerful, gay, amiable, beloved, and above all, popular and national. Gaston's heart beat when, seeking among these heads the one for which his blows were destined, he saw a black domino. Without the mask which hid his face and concealed from all eyes its changing expression, he would not have taken four steps through the rooms without some one pointing him out as an assassin. Gaston could not conceal from himself that there was something cowardly in coming to a prince, his host, to change those brilliant lights into funeral torches, to stain those dazzling tapestries with blood, to arouse the cry of terror amid the joyous tumult of a fete--and at this thought his courage failed him, and he stepped toward the door. "I will kill him outside," said he, "but not here." Then he remembered the duke's directions, his card would open to him the isolated conservatory, and he murmured-- "He foresaw that I should be a coward."