It's Leon, see? I know those white hands like
a woman's and that restless head. Ha!
"But there may be a mistake."
"No. I'd know that one anywhere; I feel it's him. I'll pay him now. Ah,
sweetheart, you've waited long, but you shall feast now!" He was
caressing something long, and lithe, and glittering beneath his blanket.
In a masked dance it is easy to give a death-blow between the shoulders.
Two crowds meet and laugh and shout and mingle almost inextricably, and
if a shriek of pain should arise, it is not noticed in the din, and when
they part, if one should stagger and fall bleeding to the ground, who
can tell who has given the blow? There is naught but an unknown stiletto
on the ground, the crowd has dispersed, and masks tell no tales anyway.
There is murder, but by whom? for what? _Quien sabe?_
And that is how it happened on Carnival night, in the last mad moments
of Rex's reign, a broken-hearted woman sat gazing wide-eyed and mute at
a horrible something that lay across the bed. Outside the long sweet
march music of many bands floated in in mockery, and the flash of
rockets and Bengal lights illumined the dead, white face of the girl
troubadour.
PAUL TO VIRGINIA.
FIN DE SIECLE.
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