"I'm beginning to wonder uneasily who _you_ may be, Monsieur Harlequin! You alarm me a little." "Aha!" he said. "I've told you I deal in magic! That you don't know who I am, even after that confession, makes me reasonably certain who _you_ are." "You're trying to scare me," she said, disdainfully. "I'll do it, yet." "I wonder." "You'll wonder more than ever in a few moments.... I'm going to tell you who you are. But first of all I want you to fix the forfeit----" "Why--I don't know.... What do you want of me?" she asked, mockingly. "Whatever you care to risk." "Then you'll have to name it. Because I don't particularly care to offer you anything.... And please hasten--I'll be missed presently----" "Won't you bet one day out of your life?" "No, I won't. I told you I wouldn't." "Then--one hour. Just a single hour?" "An hour?" "Yes, sixty minutes, payable on demand: If I win, you will place at my disposal one entire hour out of your life. Will you dare that much, pretty dancer?" She laughed, looked up at him; then readjusting her mask, she nodded disdainfully. "Because," she observed, "it is quite impossible for you ever to guess who I am. So do your very worst." He sprang from the balustrade, landing lightly, his left hand spread over his heart, his bi-corne flourished in the other. "You are Strelsa Leeds!" he said in a low voice. The golden dancer straightened up to her full height, astounded, and a bright flood of colour stained her cheeks under the mask's curved edge. "It--it is impossible that you should know--" she began, exasperated. "How _could_ you? Only one person knew what I was to wear to-night! I came by myself with my maid. It--it _is_ magic! It is infernal--abominable magic----" She checked herself, still standing very straight, the gorgeous, blossom-woven cloth-of-gold rippling; the jewels shooting light from the fillet that bound her hair. After a silence: "How did you know?" she asked, striving to smile through the flushed chagrin. "It is perfectly horrid of you--anyhow----" Curiosity checked her again; she stood gazing at him in silence, striving to pierce the eye-slits of that black skin-mask--trying to interpret the expression of the mischievous mobile mouth below it--or, perhaps the malice was all in those slanting slits behind which two strange eyes sparkled steadily out at her from the shadow. "Strelsa Leeds," he repeated, and flourished one hand in graceful emphasis as she coloured hotly again. And he saw the teeth catch at her under lip. "It is outrageous," she declared. "Tell me instantly who you are!" "First," he insisted, mischievously, "I claim the forfeit." "The--the forfeit!" she faltered. "Did you not lose your wager?" She nodded reluctantly, searching the disguised features before her in vain for a clew to his identity. Then, a trifle uneasily: "Yes, of course I lost my wager. But--I did not clearly understand what you meant by an hour out of my life."