Presently I felt a tug at my sleeve.

"Come with me," whispered a voice.

It was Kitty. We passed to the opposite side of the dancing floor, and
halted at the front of a wide marquee, whose flaps were spread to cover
a long row of seats.

"Count them," whispered Kitty hoarsely. "There are twelve!"

And so indeed there were, twelve beautiful young girls, as one might
pronounce, even though all were masked with half-face dominos. Half of
them were dressed in white and half in black, and thus they alternated
down the row. Twelve hands handled divers fans. Twelve pairs of eyes
looked out, eyes merry, or challenging, or mysterious, one could not
tell. About these young belles gathered the densest throng of all the
crowd. Some gentlemen appeared to know certain of the beauties, but
these had hard work to keep their places, for continually others came,
and one after another was introduced in turn, all down the line, as
presently it was to be my fortune to be.

"Is she here, Mrs. Kitty?" I whispered.

"You shall guess. Come." And so, as occasion offered, I was put through
this ordeal, by no means an easy one. At each fair charmer, as I bowed,
I looked with what directness I dared, to see if I might penetrate the
mask and so foil Kitty in her amiable intentions. This occupation caused
me promptly to forget most of the names which I heard, and which I doubt
not were all fictitious. As we passed out at the foot of the row I
recalled that I had not heard the name of Ellen.