Suddenly he perceived that she had caught sight of him. He could see the look of amazement rise in her face, give place to one of amusement, then change instantly into sparkling mischievousness. He moved on toward her, abashed, bewildered, feeling as if he were running a gauntlet. He could not withdraw his gaze from her, as she came quickly onward, dimpling, smiling, her face overflowing with saucy fun, her glance holding his.
"Good-evening, Mr. Wynne," she said lightly, coming up to him. "This is an unexpected pleasure."
"Good-evening," Maurice responded, hardly able to drag the words out of his parched throat.
"Of course you came for the german," Miss Morison went on, more mockingly than before. "I am so glad that I happen to have a favor for you."
She leaned forward, swaying toward him her white shoulders, dazzling him with the hint of the swell of her bosom, bewildering him with the perfume of her dark hair, the alluring feminine presence which brought the hot blood to his face. Before he guessed her intention, she had pinned to his cassock a grotesque little dangling mask which swung from a bright ribbon.
"There," she commented, drawing back as if critically to observe. "The effect is novel, but striking."
A burst of amusement, light and blinding as the spray from a whirlpool, went up from the women around. The music, the voices, the laughter, seemed to Maurice so many insults flung at him in idle contempt. He looked around him with a bitter anger which could almost have smitten these laughing women on their red mouths. Then he turned back to Berenice. He saw that she shrank before the wrath of his look; he felt with a thrill that he had at least power to make her fear him. He bent toward her full of rage made the wilder by the impulse to catch her in his arms and cover her beautiful neck with kisses.
He saw her turn pale and then flush burning red; but he hastened on after the footman without waiting for more. Presently he reached the head of the hall, where Mrs. Wilson stood laughing and talking with several men. Her dress was of alternate stripes of crimson silk and tissue of gold, and since it had excited comment from the loungers at the door, it is small wonder that to the unsophisticated deacon, almost convent bred, it appeared no less than horribly indecent. He cast down his eyes; but his glance fell upon the foot which just then she thrust laughingly forward, evidently in answer to some remark from Stanford, who stood at her right hand. Upon the toe of her exquisite little shoe sparkled a great diamond like a fountain of flame.