The LURE OF THE MASK

CONTENTS


I THE VOICE IN THE FOG

II OBJECT, MATRIMONY

III MADAME ANGOT

IV BLINDFOLDED

V THE MASK

VI INTO THE FOG AGAIN

VII THE TOSS OF A COIN

VIII WHAT MERRIHEW FOUND

IX MRS. SANDFORD WINKS

X CARABINIERI

XI THE CITY IN THE SEA

XII A BOX OF CIGARS

XIII KITTY ASKS QUESTIONS

XIV GREY VEILS

XV MANY NAPOLEONS

XVI O'MALLY SUGGESTS

XVII GIOVANNI

XVIII THE ARIA FROM IL TROVATORE

XIX TWO GENTLEMEN FROM VERONA

XX KITTY DROPS A BANDBOX

XXI AN INVITATION TO A BALL

XXII TANGLES

XXIII THE DÉNOUEMENT

XXIV MEASURE FOR MEASURE

XXV FREE

XXVI THE LETTER

XXVII BELLAGGIO




THE LURE OF THE MASK




CHAPTER I

THE VOICE IN THE FOG


Out of the unromantic night, out of the somber blurring January fog,
came a voice lifted in song, a soprano, rich, full and round, young, yet
matured, sweet and mysterious as a night-bird's, haunting and elusive as
the murmur of the sea in a shell: a lilt from _La Fille de Madame
Angot_, a light opera long since forgotten in New York. Hillard,
genuinely astonished, lowered his pipe and listened. To sit dreaming by
an open window, even in this unlovely first month of the year, in that
grim unhandsome city which boasts of its riches and still accepts with
smug content its rows upon rows of ugly architecture, to sit dreaming,
then, of red-tiled roofs, of cloud-caressed hills, of terraced
vineyards, of cypresses in their dark aloofness, is not out of the
natural order of things; but that into this idle and pleasant dream
there should enter so divine a voice, living, feeling, pulsing, this was
not ordinary at all.