CHAPTER X.
THE BLACK VEIL.
Speaking the language fluently and with unlimited money, there was nothing to prevent my enjoying all that was enjoyable in the French capital. You may easily suppose how two days were passed. At the end of that time, and at about the same hour, Monsieur Droqville called again.
Courtly, good-natured, gay, as usual, he told me that the masquerade ball was fixed for the next Wednesday, and that he had applied for a card for me.
How awfully unlucky. I was so afraid I should not be able to go.
He stared at me for a moment with a suspicious and menacing look which I did not understand, in silence, and then inquired, rather sharply.
“And will Monsieur Beckett be good enough to say, why not?”
I was a little surprised, but answered the simple truth: I had made an
