"I'm awfully sorry, Miss Rans...o...b.." he had replied. "But I don't know where Hugh can be. I've just been up to his room, but his fancy dress is there, flung down as though he had suddenly discarded it and gone out.

n.o.body noticed him leave. The page at the door is certain that he did not go out. So he must have left by the staff entrance."

"That's very curious, isn't it?" Dorise remarked.

"Very. I can't understand it."

"But he promised to go with us to the ball at Nice to-night!"

"Well, Miss Rans...o...b.. all I can think is that something--something very important must have detained him somewhere."

Walter knew that his friend was suspected by the police, but dared not tell her the truth. Hugh's disappearance had caused him considerable anxiety because, for aught he knew, he might already be arrested.

So Dorise, much perplexed, but resolving not to say to her mother that she had telephoned to the Palmiers, rejoined the Count in the hotel lounge, where they waited a further ten minutes. Then they entered the car and drove along to Nice.

There are few merrier gatherings in all Europe than the _bal blanc_. The Munic.i.p.al Casino, at all times the center of revelry, of mild gambling, smart dresses and gay suppers, is on that night an amazing spectacle of black and white. The carnival colours--the two shades of colour chosen yearly by the International Fetes Committee--are abandoned, and only white is worn.

When the trio entered the fun was already in full swing. The gay crowd disguised by their masks and fancy costumes were revelling as happily as school children. A party of girls dressed as clowns were playing leap-frog. Another party were dancing in a great and ever-widening ring. Girls armed with jesters' bladders were being carried high on the shoulders of their male acquaintances, and striking all and sundry as they pa.s.sed, staid, elderly folk were performing grotesque antics for persons of their age. The very air of the Riviera seems to be exhilarating to both old and young, and the constant church-goers at home quickly become infected by the spirit of gaiety, and conduct themselves on the Continental Sabbath in a manner which would horribly disgust their particular vicar.

"Hugh must have been detained by something very unexpected, mother,"

Dorise said. "He never disappoints us."

"Oh, yes, he does. One night we were going to the Emba.s.sy Club--don't you recollect it--and he never turned up."

"Oh, well, mother. It was really excusable. His cousin arrived from New York quite unexpectedly upon some family business. He phoned to you and explained," said the girl.

"Well, what about that night when I asked him to dinner at the Ritz to meet the Courtenays and he rang up to say he was not well? Yet I saw him hale and hearty next day at a matinee at the Comedy."

"He may have been indisposed, mother," Dorise said. "Really I think you judge him just a little too harshly."

"I don't. I take people as I find them. Your father always said that, and he was no fool, my dear. He made a fortune by his cleverness, and we now enjoy it. Never a.s.sociate with unsuccessful persons. It's fatal!"

"That's just what old Sir Dudley Ash, the steel millionaire, told me the other day when we were over at Cannes, mother. Never a.s.sociate with the unlucky. Bad luck, he says, is a contagious malady."

"And I believe it--I firmly believe it," declared Lady Rans...o...b.. "Your poor father pointed it out to me long ago, and I find that what he said is too true."

"But we can't all be lucky, mother," said the girl, watching the revelry before her blankly as she reflected upon the mystery of Hugh's absence.

"No. But we can, nevertheless, be rich, if we look always to the main chance and make the best of our opportunities," her mother said meaningly.

At that moment the Count d'Autun approached them. He was dressed as a pierrot, but being masked was only recognizable by the fine ruby ring upon his finger.

"Will mademoiselle do me the honour?" he said in French, bowing elegantly. "They are dancing in the theatre. Will you come, Mademoiselle Dorise?"

"Delighted," she said, with an inward sigh, for the dressed-up Parisian always bored her. She rose quickly, and promising her mother to be back soon, she linked her arm to that of the notorious gambler and pa.s.sed through the great palm-court into the theatre.

Then, a few moments later, she found herself carried around amid the mad crowd of revellers, who laughed merrily as the coloured serpentines thrown from the boxes fell upon them.

To lift one's _loup_ was a breach of etiquette. Everyone was closely masked. British members of Parliament, French senators, Italian members of the Camera, Spanish grandees and Russian princes, all with their womenfolk, hob-n.o.bbed with cocottes, _escrocs_, and the most notorious adventurers and adventuresses in all Europe. Truly, it was a never-to-be-forgotten scene of cosmopolitan fun.

The Count, who was a bad dancer, collided with a slim, well-dressed French girl, but did not apologize.

"Oh! la la!" cried the girl to her partner, a stout figure in Mephistophelian garb. "An exquisitely polite gentleman that, mon cher Alphonse! I believe he must really be the Pork King from Chicago--eh?"

The Count heard it, and was furious. Dorise, however, said nothing. She was thinking of Hugh's strange disappearance, and how he had broken his word to her.

Meanwhile, Lady Rans...o...b.. secretly very glad that Hugh had been prevented from accompanying them, and centring all her hopes upon her daughter's marriage with George Sherrard, sat chattering with a Mrs.

Down, the fat wife of a war-profiteer, whose acquaintance she had made in Paris six months before.

Dorise made pretense of enjoying the dance though eager to get back again to Monte Carlo in order to learn the reason of her lover's absence. She was devoted to Hugh. He was all in all to her.

She danced with several partners, having first made a rendezvous with her mother at midnight at a certain spot under one of the great palms in the promenade. At masked b.a.l.l.s the chaperon is useless, and everyone, being masked, looks so much alike that mistakes are easy.

About half-past one o'clock a big motor-car drew up in the Place before the Casino, and a tall man in a white fancy dress of a cavalier, with wide-brimmed hat and staggering plume, stepped from it and, presenting his ticket, pa.s.sed at once into the crowded ball-room. For a full ten minutes he stood watching the crowd of revellers intently, eyeing each of them keenly, though the expression on his countenance was hidden by the strip of black velvet.

His eyes, shining through the slits in the mask, were, however, dark and brilliant. In them could be seen alertness and eagerness, for it was apparent that he had come there hot-foot in search of someone. In any case he had a difficult task, for in the whirling, laughing, chattering crowd each person resembled the other save for their feet and their stature.

It was the feet of the dancers that the tall masked man was watching. He stood in the crowd near the doorway with his hand upon his sword-hilt, a striking figure remarked by many. His large eyes were fixed upon the shoes of the dancers, until, of a sudden, he seemed to discover that for which he was in search, and made his way quickly after a pair who, having finished a dance, were walking in the direction of the great hall.

The stranger never took his eyes off the pair. The man was slightly taller than the woman, and the latter wore upon her white kid shoes a pair of old paste buckles. It was for those buckles that he had been searching.

"Yes," he muttered in English beneath his breath. "That's she--without a doubt!"

He drew back to near where the pair had halted and were laughing together. The girl with the glittering buckles upon her shoes was Dorise Rans...o...b.. The man with her was the Count d'Autun.

The white cavalier pretended to take no interest in them, but was, nevertheless, watching intently. At last he saw the girl's partner bow, and leaving her, he crossed to greet a stout Frenchwoman in a plain domino. In a moment the cavalier was at the girl's side.

"Please do not betray surprise, Miss Rans...o...b.." he said in a low, refined voice. "We may be watched. But I have a message for you."

"For me?" she asked, peering through her mask at the man in the plumed hat.

"Yes. But I cannot speak to you here. It is too public. Besides, your mother yonder may notice us."

"Who are you?" asked the girl, naturally curious.

"Do not let us talk here. See, right over yonder in the corner behind where they are dancing in a ring--under the balcony. Let us meet there at once. _Au revoir_."

And he left her.

Three minutes later they met again out of sight of Lady Rans...o...b.. who was still sitting at one of the little wicker tables talking to three other women.

"Tell me, who are you?" Dorise inquired.

The white cavalier laughed.

"I'm Mr. X," was his reply.

"Mr. X? Who's that?"

"Myself. But my name matters nothing, Miss Rans...o...b.." he said. "I have come here to give you a confidential message."