He stood bowing deeply before her, one hand holding a point-edged tricorne over his heart, the other laid lightly on the hilt of his dress-sword. The black domino fell all about him in silken folds; the velvet mask through which his eyes glittered strangely baffled recognition.
Miss Letty made her curtsey, still gazing into the unknown’s face.
‘Mademoiselle will bestow her hand on me for this dance?’
There was something faintly familiar in the elusive voice. ‘I may go, Aunt?’
The elder Miss Grayson gave reluctant consent. Masked balls, where strange gentlemen with fanciful sobriquets might claim introductions were not to her taste, but there was no help for it. Miss Letty went away on the Unknown’s arm.
&
nbsp; ‘I have an odd feeling I know you, sir,’ she confided, looking up with a child’s smile. ‘Please tell me, do I?’
He shook his head; she thought his smile intriguing beyond words. ‘How should you know l’Inconnu, mademoiselle?’
This was Romance indeed. ‘But you know me, do you not?’ They were dancing now, and she asked the question as she sank to the curtsey.
They came together again. ‘Ah, that is another matter entirely,’ said the Black Domino.
She pouted. ‘And you won’t tell me! So many people I’ve guessed; oh, at once! There is Tony, for instance.’
She nodded towards a massive figure in a grey domino. ‘There is no mistaking him, to be sure. And I think I know which is Mr Merriot. I thought that lady in the blue domino was his sister, but of that I am not sure. Do you know, sir?’
‘No, mademoiselle, but then I do not want to know. I am content to have found Miss Grayson.’
She blushed, and turned away her head.
‘I offend Miss Grayson?’ the Unknown said softly.
No, she was not offended. Only – only it was so very strange not to know who he was.
‘My name you would not know if I told it,’ he said. ‘Why spoil a perfect hour?’
Her lips were a little parted. ‘A perfect hour!’ she echoed. ‘Is it perfect, sir?’
‘For me at least, Letitia.’
‘But – but you must not call me by my name!’ she said. Yet she did not sound angry.
‘Nor tell you that I came only to dance with you?’
‘D-did you, sir?’
He nodded. ‘But, of course. Didn’t you guess it, Letitia?’
‘No, oh no! How should I? And – and you use my name again, sir.’
‘But then it is such a pretty name,’ he pleaded. ‘Make me free of it for one night!’
‘It is like an adventure,’ she said. Behind the mask her eyes were like stars.
‘An adventure, or a dream.’ He led her out of the dance, away to an alcove behind great pots of flowers.
‘Not a dream! Oh no, for then I should wake up, and I do not want to. I want to see your face at the unmasking.’
‘You won’t see it, Letitia; I shall remain the Unknown.’
She sat down on the couch placed in the alcove. ‘But you will have to unmask, won’t you? Everyone must.’