He bowed stiffly.
"I am very sorry," he returned, "that Mrs. Wilson should be deprived of
so beautiful an ornament for her place."
"Then you will go?" Bee demanded, looking at him with mirthful eyes, a
glance which so moved him that he could not face it.
"I see no reason why I should remain."
"There certainly can be none if you see none. Well, I want to give you
something of yours before you leave us."
She drew from the folds of her handkerchief the little grotesque mask
which she had pinned upon her lover's cassock at the Mardi Gras ball.
Maurice flushed hotly at the sight.
"You are determined, Miss Morison, to spare me no humiliation in your
power."
"Humiliation?" she echoed. "Why, I was humiliating myself. Seriously,
Mr. Wynne, I have been ashamed of that performance ever since; and I
most sincerely beg your pardon. The humiliation is mine entirely."
"But where in the world," demanded he, a new thought striking him, "did
you get the thing? You know I threw it on the table."
"Miss Carstair gave it to Mr. Stanford, and I got it from him."
Maurice came a step nearer.
"Why?" he asked, his voice deepening.
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