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Page 5
But fate, still smiling, dropped a silver shawl in Billy's path as
he was trailing his prey through the lounge after dinner. The shawl
belonged, most palpably, to a German lady three feet ahead of him,
but gripping it triumphantly, he bounded over the six feet which
separated him from the Eversham-Beecher triangle and with marvelous
self-restraint he touched Miss Eversham on the arm.
"You dropped this?" he inquired.
Miss Eversham looked surprisedly at Billy and uncertainly at the
shawl, which she mechanically accepted. "Why I--I didn't remember
having it with me," she hesitated.
"I noticed you were wearing one other evenings," said Billy, the
Artful, "so I thought----"
"You know whether this is yours or not, don't you, Clara?"
interposed the mother.
"They all look alike," murmured Clara Eversham, eying helplessly the
silver border.
Billy permitted himself to look at Miss Beecher. That young person
was looking at him and there was a disconcerting gaiety in her
expression, but at sight of him she turned her head, faintly
coloring. He judged she recalled his unmannerly eavesdropping that
afternoon.
"Pardon--excuse me--but that is to me belonging," panted an agitated
but firm voice behind them, and two stout and beringed hands seized
upon the glittering shawl in Miss Eversham's lax grasp. "It but just
now off me falls," and the German lady looked belligerent accusation
upon the defrauding Billy.
There was a round of apologetic murmurs, unacknowledged by the
recipient, who plunged away with her shawl, as if fearing further
designs upon it. Billy laughed down at the Evershams.
"I feel like a porch climber making off with her belongings. But I
had seen you with----"
"I do think I had mine this evening, after all," murmured Clara,
with a questioning glance after the departing one.
"An uncultured person!" stated Mrs. Eversham.
Miss Beecher said nothing at all. Her faint smile was mockingly
derisive.
"Anyway you must let me get you some coffee," Billy most
inconsequentially suggested, beckoning to the red-girdled Mohammed
with his laden tray, and because he was young and nice looking and
evidently a gentleman from their part of the world and his evening
clothes fitted perfectly and had just the right amount of braid,
Mrs. Eversham made no objection to the circle of chairs he hastily
collected about a taborette, and let him hand them their coffee and
send Mohammed for the cream which Miss Eversham declared was
indispensable for her health.
"If I take it clear I find it keeps me awake," she confided, and
Billy deplored that startling and lamentable circumstance, and
passed Mrs. Eversham the sugar and wondered if they could be the
Philadelphia Evershams of whom he had heard his mother speak, and
regretted that they were not, for then they would know who he
was--William B. Hill of Alatoona, New York. He found it rather
stupid traveling alone. Of course one met many Americans, but----
Mrs. Eversham took up that "but" most eagerly, and recounted
multiple and deplorable instances of nasal countrywomen doing the
East and monopolizing the window seats in compartments, and Miss
Eversham supplied details and corrections.
Still Miss Beecher said nothing. She had a dreamy air of not
belonging to the conversationalists. But from an inscrutable
something in her appearance, Billy judged she was not unentertained
by his sufferings.
At the first pause he addressed her directly. "And how do you like
Cairo?" was his simple question. That ought, he reflected, to be an
entering wedge.
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