"Then," cried P. Sybarite in a joyful voice, "I may tell you
something: you needn't marry him."
She turned startled eyes to his, incredulous.
"_Need_ not?"
"I should have said _can_ not--"
Through the loud hum of voices that, filling the room, had furnished a
cover for their conversation, sounded the opening bars of music for
the final dance.
The girl rose suddenly, eyes like stars aflame in a face of snow.
"He will be coming for me now," she said hurriedly. "But--if you mean
what you say--I must know--instantly--why you say it. How can we
manage to avoid him?"
"This way," said P. Sybarite, indicating the wide window nearby.
Through its draped opening a shallow balcony showed, half-screened by
palms whose softly stirring fronds, touched with artificial light,
shone a garish green against the sombre sky of night.
Immediately Marian Blessington slipped through the hangings and,
turning, beckoned P. Sybarite to follow.
"There's no one here," she announced in accents tremulous with
excitement, when he joined her. "Now--_now_ tell me what you mean!"
"One moment," he warned her gently, turning back to the window just as
it was darkened by another figure.
The man with the twisted mouth stood there, peering blindly into the
semi-obscurity.
"Marian...?" he called in a voice meant to be ingratiating.
"Well?" the girl demanded harshly.
"I thought I saw you," he commented blandly, advancing a pace and so
coming face to face with the bristling little Mephistophelean figure,
which he had endeavoured to ignore.
"My dance, I believe," he added a trace more brusquely, over the
little man's head.
"I must ask you to excuse me," said the girl coldly.
"You don't care to dance again to-night?"
"Thank you--no."
"Then I will give myself the pleasure of sitting it out with you."
"I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me, Bayard," she returned,
consistently inflexible.