CHAPTER XXI

THE MYSTERY DEEPENS

Sylvia did not know what to say. There were two explanations possible--perhaps more, but two certainly.

One was that the Spaniard had hastily changed his costume, or else that there were two young men who had penetrated her disguise, and were conversant at least with the episode of the overturned canoe. And both explanations were feasible.

"I--er--I half promised this dance," murmured Sylvia. "I told----"

"Yes, and I am he whom you told," was the answer.

"He was a----"

"Yes, I know. But pardon me for pointing out that we are missing part of it," and he led her in through the low window to the ballroom. It was a onestep, and Sylvia could not judge, from the style of her partner's dancing, whether or not he was the same one she had had in the hesitation.

"I trust you did not take cold," he said, "from your immersion."

"Oh, no, not at all," Sylvia said. She and her chums had been reasonably sure that the camping accident was known only to a few in the hotel, for it had been made light of, and canoe upsets were far too common to make much fuss over. And yet if this were not the young man who had rescued the canoe he must be some one of the boarders at the Antlers who knew more about the episode than had been given out by the participants.

"And why did he change his costume, when he practically acknowledged who he was?" Sylvia asked herself.

"I hope you did not tire yourself carrying the canoes?" she remarked, casually, after a period of silence.

"I? Oh, no. Not in the least. Do you do the aëroplane in this dance?"

"Yes."

"Shall we----?"

"If you please."

He swung her into it with ease and grace. Then she was sure from his manner of stepping at her side that this was the same dancer who had been with her in the hesitation. But why had he changed his costume? That was a question which she could not answer.

The music stopped, but there was at once an insistent applauding for an encore, which, after a few seconds of waiting, came.

"Is your camp near here?" Sylvia asked.

"Not far away. Is yours?"

"No, not now."

Evidently he did not know she was a hotel guest. The mystery deepened.

"Would it be asking too much to crave the next number?" he murmured, when the last encore had been danced out.

"Well, I--er--I----"

"Oh, not if you are engaged!" he hastily interposed.

Sylvia was not, but she knew there would be no trouble in getting a partner.

"I shall see you again, anyhow," he said, as he bowed and walked off. Alice, Hazel and Rose found Sylvia standing on the porch in the brilliant moonlight.

"Oh, I had the loveliest dance!" Rose said, clapping her hands. "He showed me some new steps. He was dressed as a Spaniard and he was the same fellow who saved our canoe for us."

"He--he was?" gasped Sylvia. "Do you mean just now?"

"No, he didn't save our canoe just now. I mean when we were in the rapids."

"But did you just dance this onestep with him--with a Spaniard?"

"I certainly did."

"And did he claim to be the Knight of the Upset Canoe?"

"No, he didn't claim to be anything of the sort. But I knew from what he said that he was the one. I wonder how he knew me?"

Sylvia's brain was in a whirl. Who was the Dutchman?

"Why do you ask?" Rose wanted to know.

"Oh, nothing in particular. I'll tell you later. Here's a fox trot. I wonder----"

Three young men, as if moved by a common impulse, came fairly charging down on Alice, Rose and Hazel. The Spaniard was not one of them.

Sylvia wondered if she was to be left out, for none of the three approached her.

However, the music had played but a few more measures when Sylvia saw approaching her a masker in the red suit and face-covering of Mephistopheles. She felt a little thrill as it became evident that he meant to claim her as his partner.

"Aren't you dancing?" he asked, extending his hands in an invitation.

"Well, I----" Sylvia seemed strangely noncommittal this evening.

"Then may I have the honour? I danced with you before, I believe."

"Oh, no," she answered, as he led her toward the ballroom.

"Oh, but yes!" he insisted, with a laugh. "I am perhaps attired for something a little out of my--shall we say--element," he went on, "but surely you have not forgotten the Knight of the Overturned Canoe?" his voice questioned.

"You--you--surely you are not he!"

"Even so, O Night!"

"But you--your----"

They were fox-trotting toward the musicians, and as Sylvia was not quite sure of the sequence of the steps in this dance--at least with this partner--she deferred continuing her remarks until she had found out just how he did it.

"Here is a new one, perhaps," he said, as they found themselves in a rather secluded corner, secluded for the moment. They had just finished the two-step glide part of the fox trot. "It's a slide forward, a slide back, two counts each, another slide forward, a draw on two counts and a hop on the fourth," he explained.

He executed it as he spoke, and Sylvia grasped it almost at once.

"Like it?" he asked.

"Yes, indeed. It's quite novel. Where did you learn that?"

"In New York."

"Oh, you're from there?"

"When I'm not in the woods, saving canoes." He laughed in a boyish fashion. Sylvia looked into his eyes, but they told her nothing.

Sylvia glanced around the room. She saw neither the Spaniard nor the Dutchman. Clearly then this must be he who had masqueraded as both. And yet why his triple change of costume? There seemed to be no need of it.

Sylvia determined to find out about it, but not now. She would not give him the satisfaction of asking too many questions. But she resolved to do a bit of detective work in the interval between this and the next dance.

The fox trot ended in the tapping accompaniment by the drummer, and the musicians, who had given three encores, refused another.

"Will you have an ice?" asked Mephistopheles.

Sylvia assented. There was quite a crush in the refreshment room, but her partner managed to worm his way through, and procured for her a plate of cream and some cakes.

"If you will excuse me," he murmured, "I will claim the next dance; if I may?"

"Are you going to----"

"See some of my friends," he finished for her, not giving her a chance to intimate that he was going to change his costume again. "I see yours approaching," he added, and Sylvia looked up to note the approach of Alice, Hazel and Rose, each with an escort.

"Oh, you have been provided for," murmured Alice, as she saw Sylvia nibbling a macaroon under her mask, which came only to her lips.

"Yes, I had Mephistopheles."

"We saw you," whispered Rose.

"A lovely dancer," added Hazel.

"Who is he?" Alice wanted to know.

Sylvia shook her head, as the three young men, variously disguised, came back with refreshments for the other girls.

"I had a queer Dutchman for the first half of this dance, and then he excused himself and brought up a Spaniard," said Hazel.

"You--you did!" gasped Sylvia. She was more puzzled than ever, for she had seen neither of her two former partners on the floor.

"Both dandy dancers," Hazel went on.

There was a little wait and then another strain of music proclaimed the beginning of another hesitation. The three young men who had brought the girls to the refreshment room, escorted them back to the dance floor, and with murmured pleas that they must seek other partners, left them.

Almost at once, however, there bore down on Alice, Hazel and Rose, respectively a Spaniard, a Dutchman and Mephistopheles.

Sylvia gasped her surprise, but a moment later it was added to, for a thirteenth-century cavalier, with glossy black curls flowing over his lace collar, approached, and with a low bow, said:

"The Knight of the Overturned Canoe craves a dance with thee, O Night!"

Sylvia wondered where it would all end, and, almost as if in a dream, she accepted his arm and went out on the floor.