Page:Bedford-Jones--The Mardi Gras Mystery.djvu/164

 a boyish abandon he tramped the streets merrily, exchanging jests and confetti, shoves and bladder-blows, laughs and kisses. Madness and reckless gaiety were in the very air, and Gramont drank deep of these youthful tonics. When at last he wandered home to his pension, he was footsore, weary, disarranged, and touseled—and very happy. The wine of human comradeship is a good wine.

That evening the Comus ball, the most exclusive revel of the most exclusive aristocracy of the southland, crowded the edifice in which it was held to capacity. Here evening dress was prescribed for all the guests. The Krewe of Comus alone were masked and costumed, in grotesque and magnificent costumes which had been in the making for months. The Krewe is to the South what the Bohemian Club is to the western coast, with the added enhancement of mystery.

Despite the revels of the Krewe, however—despite the glittering jewels, the barbaric costumes, the music, the excitement—an indefinable air of regret, almost of sadness, pervaded the entire gathering. This feeling was something to be sensed, rather than observed definitely. Some said, afterward, that