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Page 54
"I am mad about you," he said in a low tone.
"And only me?" she laughed, her dimples showing.
So, teasing and luring, she held him off, and her heart beat
exultantly as she saw that she had given him the thought of marriage
for that of conquest, the dream of a perfect idyll for that of an
enforced submission.... It was a desperate play, but she played it
valiantly, and her fearfulness and the spell of her beauty sweetened
the r�le of beseeching suitor for him, and gave a glamour to this
pretty garden dalliance.... The memory of time came to him at last
with a start, and frowningly he stared at the watch he drew out to
consult.
"I must hurry away--to another part of the palace," he amended
swiftly, "where I have an engagement.... I shall not be at liberty
till to-night--rather late. I will send word to you, then----"
She shook her head at him. "To-morrow," she substituted gaily. "Let
us have luncheon to-morrow under the trees again like this.
"To-morrow is too far away----"
"No, it is just right for me. And if you really want to please
me----"
"But does it please you to make me miserable----?"
"You can't be very miserable when you have a luncheon engagement,"
she insisted. "_I'm_ not!"
He shrugged. "Till luncheon then--unless I should be back earlier
than I think." He gave her a quick look, but her face did not betray
awareness of the slip.
"Oh, of course, if you are at liberty sooner--And while you are busy
won't you manage things so I can stay out here awhile? I shall love
this garden, I know, when I am better friends with it," and after an
imperceptible pause he promised to send a maid back to keep watch
over her, and with a lingering pressure of hands and a look that
plainly said he was but briefly denying himself a more ardent
farewell, he hurried away through the banquet hall into the court.
She dared not run after to spy upon his departure. She could only
wait, hoping in every throbbing nerve that the maid would prove to
be the little one with the wart over her eye. And as she hoped she
feared, lest all her frail barrier of cards should be swept away by
a single breath.
If he should learn that the little dancer had visited her! If he
should discover that she was playing a game with him!
CHAPTER X
A MAID AND A MESSAGE
The March hare would have been a feeble comparison for Billy Hill's
madness if Robert Falconer could have seen him that Saturday
morning, that same Saturday on which Arlee was essaying her daring
r�le, for Billy Hill was sitting in the sun upon a camp stool, a
white helmet upon his head, an easel before him, and upon the easel
a square of blank canvas, and in Billy's left hand was a box of oils
and in his right a brush. And the camp stool upon which Billy was
stationed was planted directly before the small, high-arched door of
the Kerissen palace and in plain view of the larger door a few feet
to the right.
It had all followed upon acquaintance with the one-eyed man.
Taciturn in the beginning and suspicious of Billy's questionings,
that dark-skinned individual had at first betrayed abyssmal
ignorance of all save the virtues of stuffed crocodiles, but
convinced at last that this was no trap, but a genuine situation
from which he could profit, his greed overcame his native caution,
and through the aid of his jerky English and Billy's jagged Arabic
a certain measure of confidence was exchanged.
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