The Monticellonian., 1915-09-16
TWENTY-SIXTH EPISODE
THE MASQUERADE BALL.

ueuy was SLllI alive iHdI stt nOuiu not admit to herself what to the rest of us seemed obvious.
 She even refused to accept Aunt Jo- sephine's hints and decided to give a masquerade ball which she had planned as the last event of the sea son before she closed the Dodge town house and opened her country house on the shore of Connecticut
 It was shortly after the strange ap- pearance of the fussy old gentleman that I dropped in one afternoon to find Elaine addressing invitations. while Aunt Josephine helped her As we chatted, I picked up one of the pile and mechanically contemplated the address:
 M Del Mar. Hotel La Costa. New York City"
 T don't like that fellow" I re- marked, shaking my head dubiously. "Oh, you're - jealous. Walter" laughed Elaine. taking the envelope away from me and piling 1t again with the others.
 Thus it was that in the mornings mail, Del Mar, along with the rest of us. received neatly engraved little invitation:
 Miss Elaine Dodge
 Requests
 the Pleasure of Your Presence
 at the
 Masquerade Ball
 to Be
 Given at Her Residence on Friday
 Evening, June fst.
 "Good!" he exclaimed. reaching for the telephone, I'll go.'
 
 In a restaurant in the white light district two of those who had been en- gagged in the preliminary plot to steal Kennedy's wireless torpedo model, the young woman stenographer who had betrayed her trust and the man to whom she had passed the model out of the window in Washington, were seated at a table
 So secret had been the relations of all those in the plot that one group did not know the other. and the strangest methods of communication had been adopted.
 The man removed a cover from a dish. Underneath, perhaps without even the walters knowledge, was note.
 Here are the orders at last" he whispered to the girl. unfolding and reading the note Look. The model of the torpedo is somewhere in her house. Go tonight to the ball as masquerader and search for it. "Oh. splendid" exclaimed the girl. I'm crazy for a little society after this grind. Pay the check and let's get out and choose our costumes. The man paid the check and they left hurriedly. Half an hour later they were at costumer's shop choos- ing their disguises, both careful to get the fullest masks that would not ex- cite suspicion.
 It was the night of the masque- rade.
 During the afternoon Elaine had been thinking more than ever of Ken nedy It all seemed unrea! to her. More than once she stopped to look at his photograph. Several times she checked herself on the point of tears. "No," she said to herself with sort of gSim determination. "No-he is alive. NHe will come back to me he will"
 And yet she had a feeling of ter rife loneliness which even her most powerful efforts could not throw off She was determinei to go through with the bail now that she had start ed it, put she was really glad when it came time to dress, for even that took her mind from her breeding. As Marie finished helping her put on very effective and conspicuous costume, Aunt Josephine entered her dressing room.
 Are you ready, my dear?" she asked, adjusting the mask which she carried so that no one would recognize her as Martha Washington.
 Tn just a minute, auntie," answered Elaine. trying hard to put out of her mind how Craig would have liked her dress.
 Somewhat earlier. in my own apart ment. l had been arraying myself as Boum-Boum and modestly admiring the imitation made of a circus clown TAKE T0WEI kc c0lluCMipc