Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/47

 good night, he wandered disconsolately but warily about those suddenly quieted upper regions off the dancing-floor. He wandered erratically yet alertly on, with his heart in his boots, for the sudden fear possessed him that Madame Gamier had retired for the night. Then quite as suddenly he felt his heart come back from his boots to his throat. For as he stepped out of the deserted ballroom he felt his body brushed by the perilous fringes of a golden-orange opera-cloak trimmed with sable. At the same moment a little Watteau-like fan of ivory dropped to the floor.

He stood staring down at it stupidly. He heard a small coo of startled laughter and an even softer apologetic murmur of regret. He leaned forward unsteadily and groped about on the polished floor, trying, with what appeared to be the ineffectual struggles of inebriacy, to recover the fan.

The woman at his side laughed a second time, laughed softly and mysteriously, as she stooped and caught it up. Then she crossed the room and passed out through the door into the shadowy darkness of the wide loggia swept by the balmy night sea-breeze. Wilsnach, with studiously unsteady steps, made his way toward that same door and stepped out upon