The LURE OF THE MASK

By HAROLD MAC GRATH

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
HARRISON FISHER
AND
KARL ANDERSON

INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT 1908

PRESS OF
BRAUN WORTH & CO.
BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS
BROOKLYN, N.Y.

TO
MY FELLOW TRAVELER
AND
GENTLE CRITIC

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. THE VOICE IN THE FOG
CHAPTER II. OBJECT, MATRIMONY
CHAPTER III. MADAME ANGOT
CHAPTER IV. BLINDFOLDED
CHAPTER V. THE MASK
CHAPTER VI. INTO THE FOG AGAIN
CHAPTER VII. THE TOSS OF A COIN
CHAPTER VIII. WHAT MERRIHEW FOUND
CHAPTER IX. MRS. SANDFORD WINKS
CHAPTER X. CARABINIERI
CHAPTER XI. THE CITY IN THE SEA
CHAPTER XII. A BOX OF CIGARS
CHAPTER XIII. KITTY ASKS QUESTIONS
CHAPTER XIV. GREY VEILS
CHAPTER XV. MANY NAPOLEONS
CHAPTER XVI. O'MALLY SUGGESTS
CHAPTER XVII. GIOVANNI
CHAPTER XVIII. THE ARIA FROM IL TROVATORE
CHAPTER XIX. TWO GENTLEMEN FROM VERONA
CHAPTER XX. KITTY DROPS A BANDBOX
CHAPTER XXI. AN INVITATION TO A BALL
CHAPTER XXII. TANGLES
CHAPTER XXIII. THE DÉNOUEMENT
CHAPTER XXIV. MEASURE FOR MEASURE
CHAPTER XXV. FREE
CHAPTER XXVI. THE LETTER
CHAPTER XXVII. BELLAGGIO

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

O'Mally told inimitable stories

She deliberately drew a line across the centre of the table-cloth

In the balcony La Signorina reposed in a steamer chair

"Our little jig is up. Read these and see for yourself."

Again and again the prince made desperate attempts to free himself

"Take me, and oh! be good and kind to me"

THE LURE OF THE MASK

CHAPTER I

THE VOICE IN THE FOG

Out of the unromantic night, out of the somber blurring January fog, came a voice lifted in song, a soprano, rich, full and round, young, yet matured, sweet and mysterious as a night-bird's, haunting and elusive as the murmur of the sea in a shell: a lilt from La Fille de Madame Angot, a light opera long since forgotten in New York. Hillard, genuinely astonished, lowered his pipe and listened. To sit dreaming by an open window, even in this unlovely first month of the year, in that grim unhandsome city which boasts of its riches and still accepts with smug content its rows upon rows of ugly architecture, to sit dreaming, then, of red-tiled roofs, of cloud-caressed hills, of terraced vineyards, of cypresses in their dark aloofness, is not out of the natural order of things; but that into this idle and pleasant dream there should enter so divine a voice, living,