"
"You--you're not Peter Kenny?"
"No more than you are Molly Lessing."
"Molly Lessing! What do you know--? Who can you be? Why are you
masked?"
"Simply," he explained pleasantly, "that my incognito may remain such
to all save you."
"But--but who _are_ you?"
"It is permitted?" he asked, with a gesture offering to take the tiny
printed card of dance engagements that dangled from her fingers by its
silken thong.
In dumb mystification the girl surrendered it.
Seating himself beside her, P. Sybarite ran his eye down the list.
"The last was number--which?" he enquired with unruffled impudence.
Half angry, half amused, wholly confused, she told him: "Fifteen."
"Then one number only remains."
His lips hardened as he read the initials pencilled opposite that
numeral; they were "B.S."
"Bayard Shaynon?" he queried.
She assented with a nod, her brows gathering.
Coolly, with the miniature pencil attached to the card, he changed the
small, faint _B_ to a large black _P_, strengthened the _S_ to
correspond, and added to that _ybarite_; then with a bow returned the
card.
The girl received the evidence of her senses with a silent gasp.
He bowed again: "Yours to command."
"You--Mr. Sybarite!"
"I, Miss Blessington."
"But--incredible!" she cried. "I can't believe you ..."
Facing her, he lifted his scarlet visor, meeting her stare with his
wistful and diffident smile.
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