y cue--that look within your face--I ask grace for
my stupidity."

Suddenly she was frightened. He did not look like a man who wholly
surrenders his desires. His eyes seemed to say to her, "Wait--the
last word has not been spoken!" She felt her knees trembling.

With an effort she got out, "It is granted--but never again--must
you misunderstand. An American girl----"

She stopped. There was a lump in her throat. Across a bright,
familiar veranda she could hear a clear, sharp voice answer,
"American goose!" She saw a lean tanned face burn red with anger. A
wave of loneliness went through her. The irony of it was pitiless.
How right Robert Falconer had been!

He was staring down at the table beside him, frowning, considering.
She saw with peculiar distinctness how the cigarette he had dropped
had burned a hole in the fine linen. One of the candles was dripping
lopsidedly. She thought some one ought to right it. She wondered if
that soft step, hesitating, behind the curtains, was the serving
woman's, and she turned toward that doorway.

"I don't think I care for any coffee," she said, with an air of
careless finality. "I think I will go back to my room. Good
evening."

He followed her to the doorway, drawing aside the curtains as she
passed into the anteroom, and opening the door at the foot of the
steps, with an answering, "Good evening," and an added, "Till
to-morrow, Mademoiselle." And then, as the door closed below her,
she paused on the dark stairs and huddled against the wall,
listening to the faint footfalls from below, crossing and
recrossing. Then, when the silence seemed continual, she tiptoed
down the stairs again, softly pushed open the unlatched door, stole
across the anteroom to the curtained doorway and peered in.

The salon was empty, and in its center the supper table stood
stripped of its cloth and candles. Only the pale light from the
windows dispelled the growing dark. Like a little white wraith Arlee
fled through the room and turned the handle of the door at the head
of the _haremlik_ stairs. Th