“Can you keep him here a minute while I warn Mr. Thorold?” said Eve quickly.
Kitty Sartorius nodded and began to smile on the Frenchman; she then lifted her finger beckoningly. If millions had depended on his refusal, it is doubtful whether he would have resisted that charming gesture. (Not for nothing did Kitty Sartorius receive a hundred a week at the Regency Theatre.) In a moment the Frenchman was talking to her, and she had enveloped him in a golden mist of enchantment.
Guided by a profound instinct, Eve ran up the passage and into the room where Cecil was awaiting the return of his M. Sylvain.
“Come out,” she whispered passionately, as if between violent anger and dreadful alarm. “You are trapped—you—with your schemes!”
“Trapped!” he exclaimed, smiling. “Not at all. I have my revolver!” His hand touched his pocket. “By Jove! I haven’t! It’s gone!”
The miraculous change in his face was of the highest interest.
“Come out!” she cried. “Our carriage is waiting!”
In the café, Kitty Sartorius was talking to the Frenchman. She stroked his sleeve with her gloved hand, and he, the Frenchman, still held the revolver which he had displayed to the woman of the counter.
Inspired by the consummate and swiftly aroused emotion of that moment, Cecil snatched at the revolver. The three friends walked hastily to the street, jumped into the carriage, and drove away. Already as they approached the city gate, they could see the white tower of the Royal Hotel at Biskra shining across the desert like a promise of security....
The whole episode had lasted perhaps two minutes, but they were minutes of such intense and blinding revelation as Cecil had never before experienced. He sighed with relief as he lay back in the carriage.