The Palace of Darkened Windows Part 33

Presently she reverted to the topic of discovery. "But about Mr.

Falconer? Are you sure his suspicions are over now?"

"Perfectly sure. Or they will be the moment he sees you. You'll have to laugh at him if he mentions them, of course;" Billy spoke with heartiness.

"He'd hate it," the girl said musingly. "The talk and all--about me--Oh, after being such a fool _I'd never be the same to them_!"

she broke out pa.s.sionately.

The furtive pain was bolder now; Billy felt it worming deeper and deeper into his sorry consciousness. It mattered so much to her what Falconer thought--so much....

"But I'll do anything you say," she said meekly, looking up at her rescuer with those big eyes whose blueness always startled him like unsuspected lakes. He saw then that she meant to be very grateful to him. Somehow that deepened the pang. He didn't want that kind of bond....

"Then you will bury even the memory of this time and never whisper a word of it," he told her stoutly. "The talk and explanation will be over five minutes after your return. The thing is, to manage that return. Now the Evershams left Friday and this is Wednesday--six days."

"Only six days," she echoed with a ghost of a sigh.

"Now let me see where were we on the sixth day? When I was on the Nile?" He knitted his brows over it. "Why, the steamer leaves a.s.siout at noon of the fifth day--that was yesterday."

"Oh! I must have pa.s.sed them on the Nile," cried Arlee.

"Maragha is where they stopped last night. To-day they'll be steaming along steadily and stop to-night at Desneh. To-morrow night they'll be at Luxor."

"And they stay three days at Luxor?"

"The steamer does, I believe. I left the steamer there and went to the hotel for a while and spent another while at Thebes with a friend of mine."

"The excavator!" cried Arlee quickly.

"Then you do remember," said Billy with a direct look, "that dance and----"

"And our talk," she finished gaily. "And your being Phi Beta Kappa.

Oh, I was properly impressed! And I didn't know then that you were a regular Sherlock Holmes as well."

"I didn't know it either," said Billy grinning. But he knew that she didn't know now how much of a Sherlock Holmes he had managed to be for her.

"That seems ages ago," she declared, "and in an altogether different world. The only real world seems to be this desert----"

"Bedouin breakfast and camel races," finished Billy. "And it's so much of a lark for me that I can't keep my mind on the problem of the future. But I have to get you to Luxor by to-morrow night----"

"And I can't arrive in the rags and tatters of a white silk calling gown," mentioned Arlee cheerfully, surveying her disreputable and most delightful disarray. "I must have trunks and a respectable air--and a chaperon, I suppose."

"And I won't do at that. But if you get to Luxor you'll be all right. You can go to the hotel and to-morrow night the Evershams'

boat will get in about seven in the evening."

"Did you say my trunks were sent to Cook's?"

He repeated the story of the telegram to the Evershams. Over the arrival of the boy with money for her hotel bill she wrinkled her brows in perplexity. "I suppose he thought there would be less discussion about me if my bills were paid," she said finally. "But I'd like to get that money back to him."

"I'll see he gets it--with interest," responded Billy.

"And you----?" She looked up at him with a startled, vivid blush that stained her soft skin from throat to brow. "You must have been to a great deal of expense----"

"Not a bit. Please don't----"

"But I must. When I get to a bank. I still have my letter of credit with me," she said thankfully, "but it didn't do me any good in that wretched palace. It was just paper to them. I showed it to the girl once and tried to make her understand."

"The first station we find we'd better wire for your trunks to be sent by express to Cook's at Luxor--or to the Grand Hotel. And then you can take the train straight to Luxor and buy some clothes there."

"But the train--I can't travel in this! And there would be people on it who would talk----"

"Had we better make it to a.s.siout then?" said Billy doubtfully.

"Once in the city, of course, you'd be safe----"

"How far is a.s.siout from Luxor? Where are we now?"

"We're Alice in Wonderland about that. Somewhere about twenty-five or thirty miles south of a.s.siout, I should say. It must be nearly a hundred and twenty, as the crow flies, from a.s.siout to Thebes--that's right across from Luxor, you know."

Arlee was silent a moment. She lifted a handful of shining sands and let them run down from her fingers in fine dust. "It's such a pity,"

she mused, "when we've such a good start----"

Billy stared.

"And I never rode a camel," she went on. "I may never have such a chance again."

"You don't mean----?"

"It would make my story a little truer, too.... And wouldn't it be quicker?"

"Quicker? The quickest way is to go back to a.s.siout and catch the middle-of-the-night express there and get to Luxor to-morrow morning."

Arlee sighed. "I always wanted to be a gypsy," she murmured regretfully, "and now I've begun it's such a pity to stop.... And I'm _afraid_ to go back!" she cried, "They will be out looking for us--they are probably now on the way. And they'll shoot at you and carry me off--Oh, do let's go on! Don't go back to that city! We can catch the train another place. Oh, it's so much more _sensible_!"

"Sensible?" Billy repeated as if hypnotized.

"Why, of course it is. And safer. For all those people back there must be in that tribe of the sheik whose house I was in, and they are dangerous, dangerous. I want to get as far away from them as possible. I'd rather ride all the way to Thebes than run the risk of falling in their traps."

Billy was silent.

"And I'm sure the camels could make the trip in a couple of days,"

she continued, sounding a.s.sured now, and pleasantly argumentative.

"I used to read about their speed in my First Reader.... That is, if you don't mind the trouble," she added apologetically, "and being with me that day more?"

Billy choked. She looked entirely unconscious, and his dumfounded gaze fell blankly away. "There isn't anything in the world I'd like better," he said slowly, sounding reluctance in the effort not to sound anything else, "but from your point of view--if we should meet----"

"Only _fellaheen_ on the banks," she returned unconcernedly. "Not half as awkward as people on trains."

"But the--the chaperonless aspect of this picnic----?"

"Oh, _that_!" She was mildly scornful. Then she giggled. "I think a chaperon would look very silly tagging along behind on a camel....