Jerry, unless he returned in some new costume, remained away from the floor; and I gave up momentarily expecting him. I got to having a good time on my own account, especially with Cleopatra.
I could not see her face between her brow and lips. Through her mask, I got glimpse enough of her irises to see that they were blue. Her forehead was smooth and white and pretty; intelligent looking, too. Her lips were bowed and smiled pleasantly and were not too much carmined; she had a fine little chin, pretty and also firm. She’d a lovely neck and shoulders, smooth as satin; and she’d small, strong little hands with beautiful, pink nails, and slender, shapely feet.
I’m not given to noticing quite so much about a girl; but with this one, I couldn’t help it. She was an alluring little crook. I suppose the vizor had something to do with it; the hidden always beckons a fellow on; but what kept me coming was the thought,--what was she doing there? What was her line or her lay? If she were merely a guest of this ball, whose guest was she?
Naturally, at a masque--and most naturally at that masque--people dispensed with introductions. She was Cleopatra and no one gave her a modern name; as Cleopatra she lacked a Cæsar, though many were present. She lacked even an Anthony; a Magellanic mariner seemed to be her rallying point. I don’t know why I called the gentleman Magellan; if he’d been huskier I’d have called him Columbus. Somehow I’ve always imagined Magellan quick and slight and more given to liquor than Columbus. This mariner was; given to liquor, I mean. Cleopatra bothered about him for a time and then blithely abandoned him, much to my benefit.
“What shall I call you?” she asked me. So far, we had got on without names.
“Erasmus,” I said, to try her as much as anything.
To my amazement, she knew the old boy. “Holbein would be thrilled by you.” And, as she danced with my arm about her, I could feel that she was sizing me up anew. I had said “Erasmus” as I might have said Claude or Skeezix; but since she knew Erasmus, naturally she wondered how I knew. Beets, my predecessor in these garments, would not have known; but Cleopatra had known for some time that I was not Beets.
About that time came a diversion; in fact, _the_ diversion. Sir Walter Raleigh, escorting an Elizabethan lady, appeared on the floor. Both were masked; but under the garb of Raleigh were the limbs of Jerry; and I knew the Elizabethan lady, too. Here was Christina, come to the ball.