"Three weeks," said Billy under his breath, "that"s twenty-one days--at ten dollars a day. Now I wonder how many hours--or moments--that rash outlay would a.s.sure?"
"You miser! You calculating----"
"You have to calculate--when you"re an engineer."
"But to be sure spoils the charm! Now I--I do things on impulse."
"If you will only have the impulse to dance with me--on the Nile----"
"Why not risk it?" she challenged lightly, arrant mischief in her eyes. She added, in mocking tone, "There"s a moon."
"That"s a clincher," said he, with an air of decision. A faint question dwelt in the look she gave him. It was ridiculous to think he meant anything he was saying, but--she felt suddenly a little confused and shy under that light-hearted young gaiety which took every man"s friendly admiration happily for granted.
In silence they finished the dance, and this time the music failed them when they were near the wide entrance to the room where the Evershams, beckoning specters, were standing.
"I"m keeping them waiting," said the girl, with a note of concern which she had not shown over her performance in that line earlier in the day. But Billy had no time for humorous comparisons.
"When can I see you again?" he demanded bluntly. "Can I see you to-morrow?"
"To-morrow is a very busy day," she parried.
"But the evening----?"
"I shall be here," she admitted.
"And could I--could I take you--and the Evershams, of course--somewhere, anywhere, you"d like to go? If there"s any other concert----"
She shook her head. "We leave bright and early the next morning, and I know Mrs. Eversham will want her rest. I think they would rather stay here in the hotel after dinner."
"But you will keep a little time for me?" Billy urged. "Of course, staying in the same hotel, I can"t take my hat and go and make a formal call on you--but that"s the result I"m after."
They had paused, to finish this colloquy, a few feet away from the ladies, who were regarding with dark suspicion this interchange of lowered tones.
Suddenly Arlee raised her eyes and gave Billy a quick look, questioning, shyly serious.
"I shall be here--and you can call on me," she promised, and bade him farewell.
She left him deliriously, inexplicably, foolishly in spirits. He plunged his hands in his pockets and squared his shoulders; he wanted to whistle, he wanted to sing, he wanted to do anything to vent the singular hilarity which possessed him.
Then he saw, across the room, a sandy-haired young man regarding him with dour intentness, and the spectacle, instead of feeding his joy, sent conjecturing chills down his spine. His bubble was p.r.i.c.ked.
Suppose, ran the horrid thought, suppose she was simply paying off the Englishman? Girls, even blue-eyed, angel-haired girls of cherubic aspect, have not been unknown to perform such deeds of darkness! And this particular girl had mischief in her eyes.... The thought was unpleasantly likely. What had he, Billy B. Hill, of New York--State--to offer to casual view worthy of compet.i.tion with the presumable advantages of a young Englishman whose sister was staying with a Lady Claire? Perhaps the fellow himself had a t.i.tle....
Considerably dashed, he went out to consult the register upon that point.
CHAPTER II
THE CAPTAIN CALLS
Now, when the card of Captain Kerissen was handed to Miss Arlee Beecher the next afternoon, when she sauntered in from the sunny out-of-doors and paused at the desk for the voluminous harvest of letters the last mail had brought, and furthermore the information was added that the Captain was waiting, little Miss Beecher"s first thought was the resentful appreciation that the Captain was overdoing it.
She hesitated, then, with her hands full of letters and parasol, she crossed the hall into the reception room. She intended to let her caller see his mistake, so with her burdened hands avoiding a handclasp, she greeted him and stood waiting, with eyes of inquiry upon him.
The young man smiled secretly to himself. He was a young man not without experience in ladies" moods and he had a very shrewd idea that somebody had been making remarks, but he did not permit a hint of any perception of the coolness of her manner to impair the impeccable suavity of his.
"Will you accord me two moments of your time that I may give you two messages?" he inquired, and Arlee felt suddenly ill-bred before his gentle courtesy and she sat down abruptly upon the edge of the nearest chair.
The Captain placed one near her and seated himself, with a clank of his dangling scabbard. He was really a very handsome young man, though his features were too finely finished to please a robust taste, and there was a hint of insolence and cruelty about the nose and mouth--though this an inexperienced and light-hearted young tourist of one and twenty did not more than vaguely perceive.
"They are, the both, of the ball of the Khedive," he continued in his English, which was, though amazingly fluent and ready, a literal sounding translation of the French, which was in reality his mother tongue. "My sister thinks she can arrange that invitation. You are sure that you will be returned at Cairo, then?"
"Oh, dear, yes! I would come back by train," Arlee declared eagerly, "rather than miss that wonderful ball!"
She thought how astonished a certain red-headed young Englishman would be to see her at that ball, and how fortunate she was compared to his haughty and disappointed friend, the Lady Claire, and the chill of her resentment against the Captain"s intrusion vanished like snow in the warmth of her grat.i.tude.
"Good!" He smiled at her with a flash of white teeth. "Then my sister herself will see one of the household of the Khedive and request the invitation for you and for your chaperon, the Madame----"
"Eversham."
"Eversham. She will be included for you, but not the daughter--no?"
"Is that asking too much?" said Arlee hesitantly. "Miss Eversham would feel badly to be left out.... But, anyway, I"m not sure that I shall be with them then," she reflected.
"Not with them?" The young man leaned forward, his eyes curiously intent upon her.
"No, I may be with some other friends. You see, it"s this way--I didn"t come abroad with the Evershams in the first place. I came in the fall with a school friend and her mother to see Italy. The Evershams were friends of theirs and were stopping at the same hotel, and since my friends were called back very suddenly, the Evershams asked me to go on to Egypt with them. It was very nice of them, for I"m a dreadful bother," said Arlee, dimpling.
"But you speak of leaving them?" he said.
"Oh, yes, I may do that as soon as some other friends of mine, the Maynards, reach here. They are coming here on their way to the Holy Land and I want to take that trip with them. And then I"ll probably go back to America with them."
The Turkish captain stared at her, his dark eyes rather inscrutable, though a certain wonder was permitted to be felt in them.
"You American girls--your ways are absolute like the decrees of Allah!" he laughed softly. "But tell me--what will your father and your mother say to this so rapidly changing from the one chaperon to the other?"
"I haven"t any father or mother," said the girl. "I have a big, grown-up, married brother, and he knows I wouldn"t change from one party unless it was all right." She laughed amusedly at the young man"s comic gesture of bewilderment. "You think we American girls are terribly independent."
"I do, indeed," he avowed, "but," and he inclined his dark head in graceful gallantry, "it is the independence of the princess of the blood royal."
A really nice way of putting it, Arlee thought, contrasting the chivalrous homage of this Oriental with the dreadful "American goose!" of the Anglo-Saxon.
"But tell me," he went on, studying her face with an oddly intent look, "do these friends now, the Evershams, know these others, the--the----"
"Maynards," she supplied. "Oh, no, they have never met each other.
The Maynards are friends I made at school. And Brother has never met them either," she added, enjoying his humorous mystification.