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Page 75
"This way," said P. Sybarite, indicating the wide window nearby.
Through its draped opening a shallow balcony showed, half-screened by
palms whose softly stirring fronds, touched with artificial light,
shone a garish green against the sombre sky of night.
Immediately Marian Blessington slipped through the hangings and,
turning, beckoned P. Sybarite to follow.
"There's no one here," she announced in accents tremulous with
excitement, when he joined her. "Now--_now_ tell me what you mean!"
"One moment," he warned her gently, turning back to the window just as
it was darkened by another figure.
The man with the twisted mouth stood there, peering blindly into the
semi-obscurity.
"Marian...?" he called in a voice meant to be ingratiating.
"Well?" the girl demanded harshly.
"I thought I saw you," he commented blandly, advancing a pace and so
coming face to face with the bristling little Mephistophelean figure,
which he had endeavoured to ignore.
"My dance, I believe," he added a trace more brusquely, over the
little man's head.
"I must ask you to excuse me," said the girl coldly.
"You don't care to dance again to-night?"
"Thank you--no."
"Then I will give myself the pleasure of sitting it out with you."
"I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me, Bayard," she returned,
consistently inflexible.
He hesitated. "Do I understand you're ready for me to take you home?"
"You're to understand that I will neither dance nor sit out the dance
with you--and that I don't wish to be disturbed."
"Bless your heart!" P. Sybarite interjected privately.
The voice of the younger Shaynon broke with passion.
"This is--the limit!" he cried violently. "I've reached the end of my
endurance. Who's this creature you're with?"
"Is your memory so short?" P. Sybarite asked quietly. "Have you
forgotten the microbe?--the little guy who puts the point in
disappointment?"
"I've forgotten nothing, you--animal! Nor that you insulted my father
publicly only a few minutes ago, you--"
"That is something that takes a bit of doing, too!" affirmed P.
Sybarite with a nod.
"And I want to inform you, sir," Shaynon raged, "that you've gone too
far by much. I insist that you remove your mask and tell me your
name."
"And if I refuse?" said the little man coolly.
"If you refuse--or if you persist in this insolent attitude,
sir!--I--I'll--"
"_What?_ In the name of brevity, make up your mind and give it a name,
man!"
"I'll thrash you within an inch of your life--here and now!" Shaynon
blustered.
"One moment," P. Sybarite pleaded with a graceful gesture. "Before
committing yourself to this mad enterprise, would you mind telling me
exactly how you spell that word _inch_? With a capital _I_ and a final
_e_--by any chance?"
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