To Cecilia Fisher "The King said that nobody had ever danced as I danced to-night," said Columbine. "He said it was more than dancing, it was magic."

"It is true," said Harlequin, "you never danced like that before."

But Pierrot paid no heed to their remarks, and stared vacantly at the sky. They were sitting on the deserted stage of the grass amphitheatre where they had been playing. Behind them were the clumps of cypress trees which framed a vista of endless wooden garden and formed their drop scene. They were sitting immediately beneath the wooden framework made of two upright beams and one horizontal, which formed the primitive proscenium, and from which little coloured lights had hung during the performance. The King and Queen and their lords and ladies who had looked on at the living puppet show had all left the amphitheatre; they had put on their masks and their dominoes, and were now dancing on the lawns, whispering in the alleys and the avenues, or sitting in groups under the tall dark trees. Some of them were in boats on the lake, and everywhere one went, from the dark boscages, came sounds of music, thin, tinkling tunes played on guitars by skilled hands, and the bird-like twittering and whistling of flageolets.

"The King said I looked like a moon fairy," said Columbine to Pierrot.