THE HAPPY HYPOCRITE
longer were men abashed by his bright beauty, for it was hidden by the mask of silver. Those whom he had so often seen haggard over their daily tasks, he saw feasting now and wreathed with red roses. He heard them laugh to the sound of flutes, as their daughters danced in the red light of torches. And when at length they lay down upon their soft couches and sleep kissed their eyelids, he sank back into the sea and hid his mask under a little rock in the bed of the sea. Nor have men ever known that Apollo watches them often in the night time, but fancied it to be some pale goddess.”
“I myself have always thought it was Diana,” said Lord George Hell.
“An error,” my lord!” said Mr. Aeneas, with a smile. “Ecce signum!” And he tapped the mask of dull silver.
“Strange!” said his lordship. “And pray how comes it that Apollo has ordered of you this new mask?”
“He has always worn twelve new masks every year, inasmuch as no mask can endure for many nights the near brightness of his face, before which even a mask of the best and purest silver soon tarnishes, and wears away. Centuries ago, Vulcan tired of making so very many masks. And so Apollo sent Mercury down to Athens,
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