I know my mother is out," she replied. "She is on the stage picking up the bouquets. I believe she sent you a note. I do not know why she wants to see you, but she will be back soon. If you do not mind being left alone with me——"
"Pray do not apologize, Miss Bell," he said considerately.
"It is so good of you to say so. Won't you sit down?"
The Man in the Ironed Mask sat down beside the dazzling Clorinda and stared expectantly at the door. There was a tense silence. His cloak hung negligently upon his shoulders. He held his crush hat calmly in his hand.
Clorinda was highly chagrined. She felt as if she could slap his face and kiss the place to make it well.
"Did you like the play?" she said, at last.
He elevated his dark eyebrows. "Is it not obvious?"
"Not entirely. You might come to see the players."
"Quite so, quite so."
He leaned his handsome head on his arm and looked pensively at the floor. It was some moments before he broke the silence again. But it was only by rising to his feet. He walked towards the door.
"I am sorry I cannot stay any longer," he said.
"Oh, no! You mustn't go without seeing my mother. She will be terribly disappointed."
"Not less so than myself at missing her. Good-night, Miss Bell." He made his prim, courtly bow.
"Oh, but you must see her! Come again to-morrow night, anyhow," exclaimed Clorinda desperately. And when his footsteps had died away down the stairs, she could not repress several tears of vexation. Then she looked hurriedly into a little mirror and marvelled silently.
"Is he gone already?" said her mother, entering after knocking cautiously at the door.
"Yes, he is insane."
"Madly in love with you?"
"Madly out of love with me."
He came again the next night, stolid and courteous. To Clorinda's infinite regret her mother had been taken ill and had gone home early in the carriage. It was raining hard. Clorinda would be reduced to a hansom. "They call it the London gondola," she said, "but it is least comfortable when there's most water. You have to be framed in like a cucumber in a hothouse."
"Indeed! Personally I never travel in hansoms. And from what you tell me I should not like to make the experiment to-night. Good-bye, Miss Bell; present my regrets to your mother."
"Deuce take the donkey! He might at least offer me a seat in his carriage," thought Clorinda. Aloud she said: "Under the circumstances may I venture to ask you to see my mother at the house? Here is our private address. Won't you come to tea to-morrow?"
He took the card, bowed silently and withdrew.
In such wise the courtship proceeded for some weeks, the invalid being confined to her room at teatime and occupied in picking up bouquets by night. He always came to tea in his cloak, and wore his Ironed Mask, and was extremely solicitous about Clorinda's mother. It became evident that so long as he had the ghost of an excuse for talking of the absent, he would never talk of Clorinda herself. At last she was reduced to intimating that she would be found at the matinée of a new piece next day (to be given at the theatre by a débutante) and that there would be plenty of room in her box. Clorinda was determined to eliminate her mother, who was now become an impediment instead of a pretext.
But when the afternoon came, she looked for him in vain. She chatted lightly with the acting-manager, who was lounging in the vestibule, but her eye was scanning the horizon feverishly.
"Is this woman going to be a success?" she asked.
"Oh, yes," said the acting-manager promptly.
"How do you know?"
"I just saw the flowers drive up."
"I just saw the flowers drive up."
Clorinda laughed. "What's the piece like?"
"I only saw one rehearsal. It seemed great twaddle. But the low com. has got a good catchword, so there's some chance of its going into the evening bills."
"Oh, by the way, have you seen anything of that—that—the man in the Ironed Mask, I think they call him?"
"Do you mean here—this afternoon?"
"Yes."
"No. Do you expect him?"
"Oh, no; but I was wondering if he would turn up. I hear he is so fond of this theatre."
"Bless your soul, he'd never be seen at a matinée."
"Why not?" asked Clorinda, her heart fluttering violently.
"Because he'd have to be in morning dress," said the actor-manager, laughing heartily.
To Clorinda his innocent merriment seemed the laughter of a mocking fiend. She turned away sick at heart. There was nothing for it but to propose outright at teatime. Clorinda did so, and was accepted without further difficulty.
"And now, dearest," she said, after she had been allowed to press the first kiss of troth upon his coy lips, "I should like to know who I am going to be?"
"Clorinda Bell, of course," he said. "That is the advantage actresses have. They need not take their husband's name in vain."
"Yes, but what am I to call you, dearest?"
"Dearest?" he echoed enigmatically. "Let me be dearest—for a little while."
She forbore to press him further. For the moment it was enough to have won him. The sweetness of that soothed her wounded vanity at his indifference to the prize coveted by men and convents. Enough that she was to be mated to a great man, whose speech and silence alike bore the stamp of individuality.
"Dearest be it," she answered, looking fondly into his Moorish eyes. "Dearest! Dearest!"
"Thank you, Clorinda. And now may I see your mother? I have never learnt what she has to say to me."
"What does it matter now, dearest?"
"More than ever," he said gravely, "now she is to be my mother-in-law."
Clorinda bit her lip at the dignified rebuke, and rang for his mother-in-law elect, who came from the sick room in her bonnet.
"Mother," she said, as the good dame sailed through the door, "let me introduce you to my future husband."
A Family Reunion.
The old lady's face lit up with surprise and excitement. She stood still for an instant, taking in the
