She smiled, sighing slightly. She looked so young in her pale pink peignoir. “Contact with the world has, alas! made me what I am, my dear.” “Well,” I said, “to be quite candid, I don’t think that the real cause why so many women nowadays remain single is to be found in the theories we have been airing to one another. The fact is that after all we are only a bundle of nerves and emotions, and once our affections are involved we are capable of any heroism.” “You may be one of those, my dear,” was her rather grave response. “I am afraid, however, that I am not.” I didn’t pursue the subject further. She was kind and sympathetic in all else save where my love was concerned. My affection for Ernest was to her merely an amusing incident. She seemed unable to realize how terribly serious I was or what a crushing blow had fallen upon me when he had turned and forsaken me. Gerald called at eleven, for he had arranged to accompany us over to the Farrells’ at Beaulieu. “Miss Rosselli,” he cried as he greeted me, “you are a brick--that you are!” “A brick!” I echoed. “Why?” “Why, you’ve worked an absolute miracle with the guv’nor. Nobody else could persuade him to set foot on the Vispera except to return to New York, yet you’ve induced him to arrange for a cruise up the Mediterranean. What’s more, we are going to leave that cur Barnes behind.” “Are you glad?” I asked. “Glad! I should rather think so. We shall have a most glorious time! He intends asking the Farrells, Lord Eldersfield, Lord and Lady Stoneborough, and quite a lot of people. We’ve got you to thank for it. No power on earth would induce him to put to sea except yourself, Miss Rosselli.” The Carnival bal-masqué at the Casino, the great event of the King Carnival’s reign, took place on the following Sunday night, and we made to a party to go to it. There were seven of us, and we looked a grotesque crowd as we assembled in the vestibule of the Grand attired in our fantastic garbs and wearing those mysterious masks of black velvet which so effectively concealed our features. Ulrica represented a Watteau shepherdess with wig and crook complete, while I was en bébé, a more simple costume surmounted by a sun-bonnet of colossal proportions. One of the women of the party was a Queen of Folly and another wore a striking Louis XV. dress, while Gerald represented a demon, and wore pins in his tail in order to prevent others pulling that dorsal appendage. The distance from the hotel to the Casino is only a few hundred yards, therefore we walked, a merry, laughing group, for the novelty of the thing was sublime. Among our party only Gerald had witnessed a previous Carnival ball, and he had led us to expect a scene of wildest merriment.