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Page 114
"We never have a chance for a word together," Falconer was mumbling,
with a nervous hand at his mustache.
Her thoughts came fleetly back from the ancient worlds.... Her own
was upon her. She turned and laughed at him. "We've talked for three
whole days!"
"Have we? But always in some group.... I understand that Hill told
you what a couple of donkeys we made of ourselves on your account?"
Anxiously he scanned her face, silver-clear in the moonlight, for
signs of ridicule.
But Arlee's smile was very sweet. It made the sandy-haired young
man's heart quicken mysteriously. "He told me," she said. "I think
it was fine of you."
"Fine? It was lunacy.... He'd got worked up over some horrible story
he'd heard," went on the young man in the mingling humor and
embarrassment, "and nothing for it but that you'd gone the same way.
And if you'll believe it, he had us prowling around that old palace
like a pair of jolly idiots primed to get their heads blown off--and
served us jolly well right! He was in luck to get off with nothing
but a scratch."
"A scratch--? You mean--you _don't_ mean----?"
"He didn't tell you that?" Falconer was surprised; he had imagined
that Billy's narration had led romantically to Billy's wound. He
made the American a silent apology. "He was shot in the arm."
"Badly?"
"Of course not badly--he's all right now, isn't he? He said it was a
scratch."
Arlee was silent. He had been hurt all the time that he had been
riding with her over the desert ... he had been hurt all through
those horrible hot hours. And he had said nothing....
"When I think of what that chap got me in for--scaling a man's
walls, smashing in his locks, letting myself down the front of his
house like a monkey on a rope! I might have been a dashed school kid
again." Resentment and reluctant humor struggled in the young man's
speech. "Why, the fellow has the imagination of a detective ... and
of course he had some reason." Falconer's thoughts touched on the
fair-haired girl of Fritzi's report. "I'll admit he had me
worried--until I heard from the Evershams that you were all O.K. You
see what bally nonsense you put into young men's heads," he added
with a look of meaning.
"He's a very--chivalrous--young man," said Arlee.
"He's a very unbalanced young idiot," contradicted Falconer. "I
rather like the chap, himself, you know; he has nerve to spare--but
no ballast. He might have set all Cairo talking of you." His voice
hardened; "I told him that. I told him you wouldn't thank him for
it."
"I do thank him. I thank him with all my heart."
"Well, you've no reason to," Falconer returned in blunt belief.
"Linking your name with that Turk fellow; hinting you were in the
palace--he might have started a lot of rotten rumor!"
"What's--rumor?" said the girl in a breathless voice. "He was
thinking of--my safety!"
"Well, your safety didn't depend on him, did it?" Sharp jealousy of
her defense of the American intruder drove Falconer to unseemly
curtness. He gave a short laugh. "You and I," he said, "seem to be
always tilting over some chap or other."
A faint smile touched the girl's lips, a sorry little smile, edged
with rueful reminiscence ... and strange comparisons. In silence she
looked down into the shadowy temple courts where absurdly
small-looking people were strolling to and fro, while Falconer stood
looking down at her, with something akin to angry wonder in his
adoring eyes.
"Why didn't you write to a chap?" he abruptly demanded.
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