Hearts and Masks by Harold MacGrath (best short novels TXT) 📕

from the first," she said.

"What!"

She touched the signet-ring on my little finger. "I have seen that once before to-night. No," she mused, "you will not blow up the post-office to-night, nor the police-station."

She lifted the corner of her mask, and I beheld the girl I had met in Mouquin's!

"You?"

"Silence! So this is the meaning of your shuffling those cards? Oh, it is certainly droll!" She laughed.

"And are you Miss Hawthorne?"

"I am still in the mask, sir; I shall answer none of your questions."

"This is the finest romance in the world!" I cried.

"You were talking about getting out," she said. "Shall I lend you my domino? But that would be useless. Such a prestidigitator as Signor Fantoccini has only to say-Presto! and disappear at once."

"I assure you, it is no laughing matter."

"I see it from a different angle."

An artist's model, and yet a guest at this exclusive function?

A commotion around the stage distracted us. Presently we saw Teddy Hamilton mount the stage and hold up his hands.

"Attention, ladies and gentlemen!" he called.

Silence gradually fell upon the motley groups of masqueraders.

"A thief is among us. I have had all the exits closed. Everybody will be so kind as to present cards at the main entrance. Three ten-spots of hearts have been tallied on the comparing lists. We have been imposed upon. The police are on the way. Very sorry to cause you this annoyance. The identity of the holders of the cards will be known only to those of us on the committee."

Silence and then a murmur which soon became a fuzzing like that of many bees.

The Blue Domino suddenly clutched my arm.

"Please take me away, take me away at once! I'm an impostor, too!"

Two of us!

This was disaster. I give you my solemn word, there was nothing I regretted so much as the fact that I hadn't gone to the theater.

But I am a man of quick thought and resource. In the inelegant phrasing of the day, me for the cellars!

"Come," said I to the girl; "There's only one chance in a hundred, but we'll take it together."

"Together? Where?"

"Why, to the cellars. I've a pocketful of matches. We can make a try. For, if there's a thief around, and we are caught and proved impostors-Well, I leave you to imagine!"

"I will go with you," she replied resolutely.

The gods were with us. The door leading to the cellars was not locked. I opened it, passed the girl before me, and closed the door.

"I am frightened!" she whispered.

"So am I," I offered, to reassure her. "You are not afraid of rats, are you?"

"No-o!"

"Bully!" I cried. Then I laughed.

"How can you laugh? It is horrible!" she protested.

"You would come, though I heard your uncle warn you. Look at it the way I do. It's a huge joke, and years from now you'll have great fun telling it to your grandchildren."

"I wish, at this moment, I could see so far ahead-What was that?"-seizing my arm.

Click!

Somebody had locked the door behind us!


IV

In other words, we had departed the scene of festivities none too soon. I could readily understand why the door had been locked: it was not to keep us in the cellars; rather it was to prevent any one from leaving the ball-room by that route. Evidently our absence had not been noticed, nor had any seen our precipitate flight. I sighed gratefully.

For several minutes we stood silent and motionless on the landing. At length I boldly struck a match. The first thing that greeted my blinded gaze was the welcome vision of a little shelf lined with steward's candles. One of these I lighted, and two others I stuffed into the pocket of my Capuchin's gown. Then we tiptoed softly down the stairs, the girl tugging fearfully at my sleeve.

There was an earthy smell. It was damp and cold. Miles and miles away (so it seemed) the pale moonshine filtered through a cobwebbed window, It was ghostly; but so far as I was concerned, I was honestly enjoying myself, strange as this statement may seem. Here was I, setting forth upon an adventure with the handsomest, wittiest girl I had ever laid eyes upon. If I extricated her neatly, she would always be in my debt; and the thought of this was mighty pleasant to contemplate.

"Do you know the way out?"

I confessed that, so far as I knew, we were in one of the fabled labyrinths of mythology.

"Go ahead," she said bravely.

"I ask only to die in your Highness' service,"-soberly.

"But I do not want you to die; I want you to get me out of this cellar; and quickly, too."

"I'll live or die in the attempt!"

"I see nothing funny in our predicament,"-icily.

"A few moments ago you said that our angles of vision were not the same; I begin to believe it. As for me, I think it's simply immense to find myself in the same boat with you."

"I wish you had been an anarchist, or a performer in a dime-museum."

"You might now be alone here. But, pardon me; surely you do not lack the full allotment of the adventurous spirit! It was all amusing enough to come here under false pretenses."

"But I had not reckoned on any one's losing jewels."

"No more had I."

"Proceed. I have the courage to trust to your guidance."

"I would that it might be always!"-with a burst of sentiment that was not wholly feigned.

"Let us be on,"-imperatively. "I shall not only catch my death of cold, but I shall be horribly compromised."

"My dear young lady, on the word of a gentleman, I will do the best I can to get you out of this cellar. If I have jested a little, it was only in the effort to give you courage; for I haven't the slightest idea how we are going to get out of this dismal hole."

We went on. We couldn't see half a dozen feet in front of us. The gloom beyond the dozen feet was Stygian and menacing. And the great grim shadows that crept behind us as we proceeded! Once the girl stumbled and fell against me.

"What's the matter?" I asked, startled.

"I stepped on something that-that moved!"-plaintively.

"Possibly it was a potato; there's a bin of them over there. Where the deuce are we?"

"If you swear, I shall certainly scream!" she warned.

"But I can swear in the most elegant and approved fashion."

"I am not inclined to have you demonstrate your talents."

"Aha! Here is the coal-bin. Perhaps the window may be open. If so, we are saved. Will you hold the candle for a moment?"

Have you ever witnessed a cat footing it across the snow? If you have, picture me imitating her. Cautiously I took one step, then another; and then that mountain of coal turned into a roaring tread-mill. Sssssh! Rrrrr! In a moment I was buried to the knees and nearly suffocated. I became angry. I would reach that window-

"Hush! Hush! The noise, the noise!" whispered the girl, waving the candle frantically.

But I was determined. Again I tried. This time I slipped and fell on my hands. As I strove to get up, the cord of my gown became tangled about my feet. The girl choked; whether with coal-dust or with laughter I could not say, as she still had on her cambric-mask.

"Forgive me," she said. And then I knew it was not the coal-dust.

"I'll forgive you, but I will not promise to forget."

"Merciful heavens! you must not try that again. Think of the noise!"

"Was I making any noise?"-rubbing the perspiration from my forehead. (I had taken off my mask.)

"Noise? The trump of Judgment Day will be feeble compared to it. Surely some one has heard you. Why not lay that board on top of the coal?"

A good idea. I made use of it at once. The window was unlatched, but there was a heavy wire-screen nailed to the sills outside. There was no getting out that way. The gods were evidently busy elsewhere.

"Nothing doing," I murmured, a bit discouraged.

"And even if there was, you really could not expect me to risk my neck and dignity by climbing through a window like that. Let us give up the idea of windows and seek the cellar-doors, those that give to the grounds. I declare I shall leave by no other exit."

"It was very kind of you to let me make an ass of myself like that. Why didn't you tell me beforehand?"

"Perhaps it's the angle of vision again. I can see that we shall never agree. Seriously, I thought that if you got out that way, you might find the other exit for me. I am sorry if my laughter annoyed you."

"Not at all, not at all. But wouldn't it be wise to save a little laughter to make merry with when we get out?"

I stepped out of the bin and relieved her of the candle; and we went on.

"You did look funny," she said.

"Please don't!" I begged.

Soon we came to a bin of cabbages. I peered in philosophically.

"I might find a better head in there than mine," I suggested.

"Now you are trying to be sarcastic," said the girl.

We went on.

"Wait a moment!" she cried. "Here's a bin of nice apples."

Apples! Well, my word, she was a cool one! I picked up one, polished it on my sleeve, and gave it to her.

"I'm hungry," she said apologetically.

"And plucky, too," I supplemented admiringly. "Most women would be in a weeping state by this time."

"Perhaps I am waiting till it is all over."

"You had better take off your mask." In fact I felt positive that the sight of her exquisite face would act like a tonic upon my nerves.

"I am doing very well with it on. I can at least keep my face clean." She raised the curtain and took a liberal bite of the apple-so nonchalantly that I was forced to smile.

"Here's a box," said I; "let's sit down while we eat. We are safe enough. If any one had heard the racket in the coal-bin, the cellar would have been full of police by this time."

And there we sat, calmly munching the apples, for all the world as if the iron hand of the law wasn't within a thousand miles of us. It was all very amusing.

[Illustration: And there we sat, calmly munching the apples.]

"Are- are you the man they are