to find our hostess and make ourselves known, but there was no way of
telling which one Mrs. McClure was. Everybody was masked and frolicking
around and there didn't seem to be anyone doing the duty of a hostess
whom we could suspect of being Mrs. McClure. Later on we discovered
that there was a reception-room off at the other end of the ballroom
where Mrs. McClure had been receiving her guests, but at the time we
saw nothing but the shifting masses of light and color around us, that
resolved themselves into kings and queens and princes and Indians and
turbaned Hindoos and pirates and Turks and peasants and fairies. The
orchestra was playing the opening bars of a waltz and the dancers were
seeking partners. We withdrew into a corner behind a large palm to look
on. To our surprise and somewhat to our embarrassment we were asked to
dance before the waltz was over. My partner was a Scottish highlander
and a good dancer, and he evidently thought I belonged in the set who
were the guests at this ball, because he kept pointing out different
people and asking if I thought they were this one or that one. I did
not speak much, however, and do not think he ever guessed that I was
not a friend of Mrs. McClure's, was an outsider at the ball, and was,
in fact, the mere tourist I was supposed to represent. I thought,
however, I might get one piece of information out of him.

"I don't see Mrs. McClure," I said, looking over the dancing couples.
Then it was that the Highlander told me about the reception-room at the
other side of the conservatory that opened out of the ballroom, where
Mrs. McClure was. I mentally thanked him for this piece of information
and purposed to tell Nyoda about it as soon as the dance was over. But
when that dance came to a close we were claimed by other partners for
the next, and so on, and we did not get out of the ballroom.

The memory of that ball is like some queer oriental dream and even