!" Dazzlingly she smiled
on him, her dark eyes quizzically provocative.

"You're not at the Grand?"

"No, not that." She named another. "You come see me, when that girl
goes--h'm?"

Billy caught the German's eyes upon him, in their depths a faint
trouble, a vague appeal. He comprehended that the infatuated young
man had engaged in the tortuous business of keeping sparks from
tinder.

"I'm gone to-morrow," he replied.

"Maybe in Vienna?" went on the dancer. "We go soon--another day or
so maybe--and then back over the water to that life I left! Oh, my
God, how happy I am to go back to it all--to dance, to sing--Oh, I
could kiss you, Mr. Billy, if it would not make you so shock!" she
added with a malicious little laugh. "You know the news--about
_him_--h'm?"

"Him?"

"Kerissen--that devil fellow. He is in Cairo with a fever--in the
hospital there. A man who come from that hospital just tells
us--just by accident he tell us. A _bad_ fever, too!" She laughed in
satisfaction. "I hope he burn good and hard up," she added, with
energetic spite, "and teach him not to act like a wild man. That man
say he got a bad hand," she added, with a shrewd glance at Billy.

The young man merely grunted. "I hope he has," he replied. "It
matches the rest of him. Good night."

"Good night--for the now--h'm, Mr. Billy?" and with a quick little
clasp of his big hand and a gay little backward look the girl was
gone into the shadows upon the arm of her jealous cavalier.

Three people were waiting at the statue foot where he had left the
English girl.

"They've come at last, Mr. Hill," Lady Claire's voice struck very
gaily upon him, "and Miss Falconer has just come to tell us we must
see the colored lights in the great court--and then go home. So
hurry!"

She turned as she spoke and put her arm suddenly through Falconer's
who was standing next her. "Come on," she lightly commanded, and
promptly led the way.

That was something like a fairy godmother! Into Billy's eyes flashed
a warm light of gladness. Some moments out of that wretched evening
should yet be his own, bitter-sweet as they were in their sharp
finality.

He turned to the blue-cloaked figure at his side. "Do you like
colored fire?" he demanded. "Won't you come and see something
else--something I've wanted to see and to have you see with me? It's
near the way out. We can meet them at the pylon."

Of course she acquiesced. That was part of the cursed restraint
betwe