could only ask me to vacate the premises, should I be so unfortunate as
to be discovered. In that event, Teddy Hamilton would come to my
assistance. . . . She was really beautiful! And then I awoke to the
alarming fact that the girl in Mouquin's was interesting me more than I
liked to confess.

Presently, through the haze of smoke, I saw a patch of white paper on
the rug in front of the pier-glass. I rose and picked it up.


NAME: _Hawthorne_
COSTUME: _Blue Domino_
TIME: _5:30 P. M._
RETURNED:
ADDRESS: _West 87th Street_

FRIARD'S


I stared at the bit of pasteboard, fascinated. How the deuce had this
got into my apartments? A Blue Domino? Ha! I had it! Old Friard had
accidentally done up the ticket with my mask. A Blue Domino; evidently
I wasn't the only person who was going to a masquerade. Without doubt
this fair demoiselle was about to join the festivities of some
shop-girls' masquerade, where money and pedigree are inconsequent
things, and where everybody is either a "loidy" or a "gent." Persons
who went to my kind of masquerade did not rent their costumes; they
laid out extravagant sums to the fashionable modiste and tailor, and
had them made to order. A Blue Domino: humph!