t
much time by his own fireside absorbed in reading and meditation; and
when he did come it was usually late and, instead of talking to Pearl,
he would listen in silence to Hugh's playing or else engage him in
conversation.

But this attitude on his part failed to cloud Pearl's spirits. She had
seen men taken with this not inexplicable shyness before, and she made
no effort to rouse Harry from his abstraction or to lure him from his
meditations; femininely, intuitively wise, she left that to time.

But even in her moods of gayety the Black Pearl was never voluble, and
her habit of silence was a factor in maintaining the mystery with which
Seagreave's imagination was now beginning to invest her, and during
those winter evenings when she would often sit absolutely motionless for
an hour at a time, her narrow eyes dreaming on the fire, the sphynx look
on her face, more than once he felt impelled to murmur:

"'The Sphinx is drowsy,
Her wings are furled:
Her ear is heavy,
She broods on the world.
Who'll tell me my secret,
The ages have kept?--
I awaited the seer,
While they slumbered and slept.'"

Thus, more and more, he saw her as the image of beauty and of mystery,
and ever more frequently he pondered on the nature of the message of the
desert. But had he come down to Gallito's cabin earlier in the evening
he would not have found her brooding on the firelight. Usually, she
danced, keeping well in practice. She and Hughie would discuss by the
hour new movements and effects, and not only discuss, but try them, and
she and Jose, who had a light foot, often gave Gallito the benefit of
seeing them in many of the old Spanish dances.

But one evening when Seagreave came down, Pearl was not resting after
her exertions, but ran forward to greet him with unwonted vivacity, and
drew him toward a window in a dim corner of the room, out of earshot of
her father and Jose.

"Oh!" she cried. "Look, look at what they have sent me from the camp for
dancing for them. I had no idea it would be so much." She took a roll of
bills from her bosom and showed it to him. Her cheek was flushed, her
eyes were like stars. "Why, even here, even up here," she cried, "I can
make money."

"You look as if you enjoyed making money," he smiled.

She looked up at him as if surprised, and then laughed. "Of course, of
course I do. Who doesn't?" Her touch on the bills was a caress. She
seemed to find a