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Page 119
* * * * *
"It is an unforgettable night," said the girl in the rose cloak.
He thought that was just the word for it, and a wryly humorous glint
was in the look he gave her. And he thought that she, too, was
playing the game mighty stanchly, and had been playing it bravely
these three days, since her conquering little rival had made her
reappearance. His heart warmed toward her in understanding and
compassion. They were comrades in affliction. He was not the only
one in the world who was not getting the heart's desire.
Aloud he answered, "And the last night for me."
Lady Claire looked up quickly. Her voice showed her struck with
sudden surprise. "You are going--so soon?"
"To-morrow."
"To Assouan?" Odd sharpness edged the question.
He waited a perceptible moment, though his resolution had been
taken. "Back to Cairo."
"Oh ... How long shall you be there?"
"Just till I get sailings. It's time for me to be off. I'm really a
working person, you know, not a playing one."
"You make bridges--and dams--and things, don't you?" she questioned
vaguely.
"Bridges--and dams--and things."
"Why don't you wait here for your sailings?" she asked impersonally
after another pause. "It's so _much_ more attractive here than
Cairo."
"I'd like to." He thought of next Friday--and Arlee's return--and
the masked ball. For a moment temptation urged. Then he threw back
his head with a gesture of decision. "But I can't. It's impossible."
Now Lady Claire did not know that he was thinking of next
Friday--and Arlee's return--and the masked ball. She only knew that
he spoke with a curious fierceness, and that his eyes were very
bright. And something in the girl, something strange and
acknowledged that had been so fitfully gay and light these three
days, quickened in mysterious excitement.
"Nothing is impossible," she gave back, "to a _man_!"
Billy thought she was resenting the conventions of the restricted
sex. She could not make any open advance toward Falconer while he,
as man, could make all the open advances to Arlee he was willing
to--but in this case his hands were tied. A man cannot inflict
himself upon a girl who may not feel herself free to reject him. He
laughed, with sorry ruefulness.
"There's a whole lot," he observed, "that is impossible to a man who
tries to be one," and then, oblivious of any construction she might
choose to put upon this cryptic utterance, he strolled moodily on,
in brooding silence.
After a pause, "Of course," said Lady Claire in so gentle a little
voice that it seemed to glide undisturbingly among his silent
meditations, "of course, a man has his--pride."
"I hope so," said the young man briefly. He understood her to be
probing for his reason for abandoning the chase; he understood that
for her own sake she would like to see him successful with Arlee,
and he was queerly sorry to be failing to help her there. But he had
done all that he could....
The girl spoke again, her face straight ahead, her shadowy eyes
staring out into the moonlight. "Is it--money?" she said in the same
little breath of a voice.
"Money!" Billy threw back the words in surprise, half contemptuous,
"Oh, Lord, no, it's not _money_! I haven't much of it _now_, but I'm
going to make a bunch of the stuff--if I want to." He spoke with
na�ve and amazing confidence which somehow struck astounded belief
into the listener. "There's enough of it there, waiting to be
made--no, it's not money--though perhaps one might well think it
ought to be. I suppose my work might strike a girl as hard for her,"
he went on, considering aloud these problems of existence, "for it's
here to-day and there to-morrow--now doing a building in a roaring
city and now damming up some reservoir deep in the mountains--but it
always seemed to me that the girl who would like me would like that,
too. It's seeing so much of life--and such real life! Oh, no," he
said, and though a trace of doubt had struck into his voice, "that
in itself wouldn't be what I'd call impossible--not for the right
girl."
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