“Do you really like it?” Ethel asked as she slipped into it. “I do think it’s becoming to me... though Columbines are awfully common during Mardi Gras. But Joe wanted to be a Harlequin... so I got it to please him.”

“Will we see people you know to-day?” Barbara asked anxiously. “Or will we just be with strangers?”

“We’re supposed to meet Frank and Joe with a crowd at the St. Charles at four. We’ll just play at sightseeing until then. You’ll find there’s plenty to do,” Ethel assured her gayly. “New Orleans has on her holiday attire... visitors have just been flowing in for weeks... there’ll be plenty of celebrating to-day.”

“Doesn’t... King Rex come to town to-day? Isn’t there a big parade and celebration and something on the river?” Barbara asked doubtfully. “Seems to me I’ve read about that always being on Monday.”

“It used to be. Rex used to land at the foot of Canal Street on Monday and formally take over the affairs of the city. But they had to cut that out because of so many accidents during the river pageant. Rex won’t come till about eleven o’clock to-morrow morning. That’s when the whole city really goes wild, of course. But you won’t find thrills lacking to-day,” Ethel promised.

She adjusted her domino before the mirror and turned toward the door. “Let’s get off,” she said excitedly. “I’m looking forward to a world of fun just showing you off.”

“We’ll take a street car,” Ethel proposed when they went out the front door. “I could use the car if I wanted, but an automobile is just a bother once you’re downtown. Do you mind?”

“Of course not,” Barbara laughed. “A street car is an adventure for me.”

They walked in silence the few blocks to the street car line. A battered car passed them, loaded with a dozen or more happy youths from Tulane University. They shouted greetings and invitations to the two masked girls, but Ethel smilingly shook her head.

“You mustn’t mind being shouted at,” she told Barbara. “Every girl that wears a costume and mask is advertising “that she’s looking for a good time. Just take all the invitations as compliments... you don’t have to accept any you don’t want to.”

Barbara was ashamed to tell Ethel how thrilling it was to be shouted at by a group of boys. She wanted invitations... heaps of them. She wanted everything that Mardi Gras offered. She wanted to sense the exultant freedom she saw depicted on every face. She wanted to grasp the peculiar “feel” of Mardi Gras and hug it tightly to her bosom.

The street car was gayly decorated and crowded to overflowing when it paused at the corner. But the conductor smilingly assured them that there was plenty of room for two more as pretty as they, and he made a place for them on the platform.

Barbara was wedged in tightly against two men... with Ethel separated from her in the jam.

One of the men was a scholarly appearing gentleman with a pink feather rakishly askew in his Panama. The other was a fat man with a pudgy face, and a rounded belly which rubbed ingratiatingly against Barbara.

“You are very beautiful,” the scholarly gentleman whispered in her ear.

“My God! but you are swell... and all alone, hey?” the fat man leered at her from the other side.

Barbara smiled absently at both without appearing to hear them. Her wide eyes were receiving impressions too fast for her racing mind to assimilate. She saw Ethel talking animatedly with a thin man who wore a derby several sizes too small for him cocked over one ear. Ethel smiled at her and winked impishly.

Barbara smiled back. Her body quivered with a strange exultation as the heavily laden car moved slowly down toward the business section of the city where the holiday spirit was more in evidence and the sidewalk throngs were more boisterous and feverishly gay.

They descended from the street car near Lee Circle, and were immediately drawn into the vortex of merrymakers. Staid men and gracious ladies lost all sense of personal dignity in the mad rush for fleeting happiness.

The morning passed swiftly for Barbara. She clung close to Ethel and was glad to follow her lead. Later, she found that she retained only kaleidoscopic memories of her initiation into carnival spirit.

The milling crowd at the corner of Gravier and St. Charles, where the boy kissed her upon the lips... only to be whirled away and soundly slapped by the buxom lass who accompanied him.

The exultant moment in Lafayette Square where a laughing group surrounded her and forced her to execute a series of dance steps before they would let her go. She always blushed at that memory. She had twirled her skirt shamelessly, and she never forgot the poignant hope she had seen on many masculine faces.

So it went on. The morning was a mirage of happiness. Gay shouts and joyful laughter. A dozen times men seized and attempted to draw her from the swirling crowds... and a dozen times she laughingly resisted. No one seemed to mind either the invitations or the smiling refusals. All were a part of the Mardi Gras game.

She found that she simply could not regard the whispered proposals as insults. They were freely offered: as freely rejected or accepted. No one seemed to pay others any particular heed. All were participants in the greatest fête yet devised by man. As participants, the rules were simple: Simply to seize what one wished and what was possible for one to grasp... all else was offered freely for those who wished to accept.

Barbara and Ethel were munching hamburgers bought from a sidewalk vendor when Barbara noticed the two girls in the male costumes of Harlequin and pirate.

They were a striking couple. Both were extremely tall, and they carried their costumes with swaggering ease. The pirate was a brunette with bobbed hair tied tightly back with a gay ribbon. The Harlequin was very blonde, with golden hair trimmed exceedingly short. Both wore black dominoes, from which their eyes peered forth boldly.

The pirate smiled warmly when she caught Barbara’s eye. She turned to her friend and spoke in a gruff voice:

“Methinks I see fair prey. Yon shrinking Quaker takes my fancy.”

“And a Columbine for my Harlequin,” the blonde lisped.

Barbara nudged Ethel as the two moved toward them. “Look,” she whispered. “Do you know them?”

Ethel shook her head smilingly as they moved back to the curb on the edge of the human stream which flowed along the sidewalk.

“I never saw them before,” she whispered. “They wear their costumes well. Do you want to know them?”

“They look interesting,” Barbara whispered as they sauntered close. Her heart seemed strangely accelerated.

“I imagine they’ll be very interesting,” Ethel said aloud.

The Harlequin smiled as she heard the words. “My Columbine!” she exclaimed. She stepped close to Ethel and peered into her face. “I’ve been seeking you,” she proclaimed.

“Zounds and bloody fish hooks!” The pirate said as she seized Barbara’s arm. “A demure Quaker maid! Shall I take you captive?” She bowed low before her. “Before some nasty man beats me to it?” she added in a lower voice.

Barbara turned helplessly to Ethel and met her challenging smile. “Harlequin says they have a quiet apartment near,” Ethel told her. “Shall we get out of the crowd and rest a little?”

“With exotic wines to fire your pulse,” the pirate whispered to Barbara as she hesitated. “Or must I capture you and hold you against the world?” Her fingers tightened gently on Barbara’s arm.

“We’ll go if you like,” Ethel said eagerly to Barbara. “After all, we have a couple of hours to kill before our appointment... and I could stand to rest my feet a little.”

“So could I,” Barbara told her truthfully.

“Let’s go then.” Ethel smiled understandingly at the Harlequin and took her arm.

Barbara and the pirate followed them a few blocks down Rampart to the entrance of a modest apartment building. There was a stuffy lobby and a curving flight of stairs.

The pirate continued to squeeze Barbara’s arm and remain silent as they mounted the stairs behind Ethel and the Harlequin who kept up a low-toned conversation.

The Harlequin opened a door with a latchkey, and they were ushered into a cool and comfortable apartment.

The pirate released Barbara’s arm and patted her shoulder. “Make yourself comfortable, you adorable thing,” she breathed. “I’ll help Johnny get the wine.”

Barbara sank into a leather chair as the hostesses disappeared into another room. Ethel dropped to a couch and sighed with relief. She smiled obliquely at Barbara. “Mark it down to experience,” she said softly, to her unspoken question.

The Harlequin returned with a decanter of wine then, and Ethel had no opportunity to explain her cryptic remark.

“Frankie is taking off her mask and sash,” she said to Barbara. “Don’t be impatient... she’s wild about you.”

She set the decanter down and poured four glasses of wine while Barbara tried, vainly, to understand her words. On the surface it was merely a happily informal acquaintanceship formed under the laxity of the Mardi Gras spirit.

But she sensed a deeper mystery about the two girls. An indefinable something which seemed to set them apart from anyone she had ever known before. There was something more than a gay comradeship in their actions and speech.

She sipped her wine thoughtfully as she sought to analyze a queer emotion which gripped her. In one sense it was fear... though it really wasn’t fear. An emotion which tingled through her body and set her nerves on fire.

Johnny sat on the couch with Ethel. She had thrown aside her mask and her features were coarser than Barbara had expected them to be.