CHAPTER XI.
FETE GALANTE The forest, in every direction, was strung with lighted lanterns; tall torches burning edged the Gray Water, and every flame rippled straight upward in the still air.
Through the dark, mid-summer woodland music of violin, viola, and clarionet rang out, and the laughter and jolly uproar of the dancers swelled and ebbed, with now and then sudden intervals of silence slowly filled by the far noise of some unseen stream rushing westward under the stars.
Glade, greensward, forest, aisles, and the sylvan dancing floor, bounded by garlanded and beribboned pillars, swarmed with a gay company.
Torchlight painted strange high lights on silken masks, touching with subdued sparkles the eyes behind the slanting eye-slits; half a thousand lanterns threw an orange radiance across the glade, bathing the whirling throngs of dancers, glimmering on gilded braid and sword hilt, on powdered hair, on fresh young faces laughing behind their masks; on white shoulders and jewelled throats, on fan and brooch and spur and lacquered heel.

There was a scent of old-time perfume in the air, and, as Duane adjusted his mask and drew near, he saw that sets were already forming for the minuet.
He recognised Dysart, glorious in silk and powder, perfectly in his element, and doing his part with eighteenth-century elaboration; Kathleen, tres grande-dame, almost too exquisitely real for counterfeit; Delancy Grandcourt, very red in the face under his mask, wig slightly awry, conscientiously behaving as nearly like a masked gentleman of the period as he knew how; his sister Naida, sweet and gracious; Scott, masked and also spectacled, grotesque and preoccupied, casting patient glances toward the dusky solitudes that he much preferred, and from whence a distant owl fluted at intervals, inviting his investigations.
And there were the Pink 'uns, too, easily identified, having all sorts of a good time with a pair of maskers resembling Doucette Landon and Peter Tappan; and there in powder, paint, and patch capered the Beekmans, Ellises, and Montrosses--all the clans of the great and near-great of the country-side, gathering to join the eternal hunt for happiness where already the clarionets were sounding "Stole Away." For the quarry in that hunt is a spectre; sighted, it steals away; and if one remains very, very still and listens, one may hear, far and faint, the undertone of phantom horns mocking the field that rides so gallantly.
"Stole away," whispered Duane in Kathleen's ear, as he paused beside her; and she seemed to know what he meant, for she nodded, smiling: "You mean that what we hunt is doomed to die when we ride it down ?" "Let us be in at the death, anyway," he said.

"Kathleen, you're charming and masked to perfection.

It's only that white skin of yours that betrays you; it always looks as though it were fragrant.

Is that Geraldine surrounded three deep--over there under that oak-tree ?" "Yes; why are you so late, Duane?
And I haven't seen Rosalie, either." He did not care to enlighten her, but stood laughing and twirling his sword-knot and looking across the glittering throng, where a daintily masked young girl stood defending herself with fan and bouquet against the persistence of her gallants.