Hearts and Masks

No turning back for me now. I picked up my suit-case and got out. On

the platform I saw the curio-shop fellow again. Tramping on ahead, the

smell from his villainous pipe assailing my nostrils, was the man who

had asked for a match. The former stood undecided for a moment, and

during this space of time he caught sight of me. He became erect, gave

me a sudden sardonic laugh, and swiftly disappeared into the dark. All

this was uncommonly disquieting; in vain I stared into the blackness

that had swallowed him. What could he be doing here at Blankshire? I

didn't like his laugh at all; there was at once a menace and a

challenge in it.

"Any baggage, sir?" asked one of the station hands.

"No." But I asked him to direct me to a hotel. He did so.

I made my way down the street. The wind had veered around and was

coming in from the sea, pure and cold. The storm-clouds were broken

and scudding like dark ships, and at times there were flashes of

radiant moonshine.

The fashionable hotel was full. So I plodded through the drifts to the

unfashionable hotel. Here I found accommodation. I dressed, sometimes

laughing, sometimes whistling, sometimes standing motionless in doubt.

Bah! It was only a lark. . . . I thought of the girl in Mouquin's;

how much better it would have been to spend the evening with her,

exchanging badinage, and looking into each other's eyes! Pshaw! I

covered my face with the grey mask and descended to the street.

The trolley ran within two miles of the Hunt Club. The car was crowded

with masqueraders, and for the first time since I started out I felt

comfortable. Everybody laughed and talked, though nobody knew who his

neighbor was. I sat in a corner, silent and motionless as a sphinx.

Once a pair of blue slippers attracted my eye, and again the flash of a

lovely arm. At the end of the trolley line was a carryall which was to

convey us to the club. We got into the conveyance, noisily and

good-humoredly. The exclamations of the women were amusing.

"Good gracious!"

"Isn't it fun!"

"Lovely!" And all that. It must have been a novelty for some of these

to act naturally for once. Nothing lasts so long as the natural

instinct for play; and we always find ourselves coming back to it.

Standing some hundred yards back from the road was the famous Hollywood

Inn, run by the genial Moriarty. Sometimes the members of the Hunt

Club put up there for the night when there was to be a run the

following morning. It was open all the year round.