illusion. The dim light made everything indefinite. But the suspicion
roused in her in full strength her prejudice against him. She drew back
deliberately, and her anger grew from scorn to cruelty during the
moments that intervened between his question and her answer.

"You have chosen a very appropriate occasion," she remarked icily at
length. "Do you imagine yourself irresistible when playing the fool, I
wonder?"

He faced round on her.

"I have taken the only opportunity I could get," he said. "I am a slave
of circumstance. If I had come to you in rational costume you would not
have consented to sit out with me."

There was a ring of laughter in his explanation. He did not take her
anger seriously, then. Molly quivered with indignation. She would
speedily show him his mistake.

"You think, then," she said, "that this buffoonery is too amusing to be
foregone? I am afraid I do not agree with you."

She paused. Charlie had given a great start of surprise. She could see
the astonishment on his boyish face under the white mantilla he wore.

"Oh, look here!" he exclaimed impetuously. "You have got the wrong side
of everything. It isn't buffoonery. I don't play with sacred things.
I'm in earnest, Molly. Can't you see it? What do you take me for?"

She heard the note of honesty in his voice and shifted her batteries.