Page:The City of Masks (1918).djvu/300

288 casual smile of one who is very well satisfied with his position.

In a cheery, off-hand manner he inquired if she was by any chance going in his direction.

The metamorphosis was complete. The instant he stepped outside of Mrs. Millidew's door, the mask was cast aside. He stood now before the world,—and before the puzzled young widow in particular,—as a thoroughbred, cocksure English gentleman. In a moment his whole being seemed to have undergone a change. He carried himself differently; his voice and the manner in which he used it struck her at once as remarkably altered; more than anything else, was she impressed by the calm assurance of his inquiry.

She was nonplussed. For a moment she hesitated between resentment and the swift-growing conviction that he was an equal.

For the first time within the range of her memory, she felt herself completely rattled and uncertain of herself. She blushed like a fool,—as she afterwards confessed,—and stammered confusedly:

"I—yes—that is, I am going home."

"Come along, then," he said coolly, and she actually gasped.

To her own amazement, she took her place beside him and descended the steps, her cheeks crimson. At the bottom, she cast a wild, anxious look up and down the street, and then over her shoulder at the second-story windows of the house they had just left.

Queer little shivers were running all over her. She couldn't account for them,—any more than she could