"I can lend you a little," said Max. "I've a few hundred dollars left." He laughed. "It seems a lot here! These poor chaps look on me as a millionaire, a sort of prince, because I've got something behind the daily five centimes—some dollars to buy decent tobacco for my friends and myself, and pay fellows to do my washing and so on—fellows wild with joy to do it! Jove! It makes me feel a brute to think what a few sous mean to them, gentlemen, some of 'em, who've lived a more luxurious life than I have—and——"
"Maybe that's why they're here: because they lived too luxuriously—on other people's money. Tell me, St. George, did you ever hear the name of Manöel Valdez?"
Max thought for an instant. "Valdez? Let me see ... how ... I know, a singer! He sang last winter in New York, in something or other, a small part, and I wasn't there, but I saw great notices. I remember now. Why, you're——"
"Yes. You're right. Don't be afraid to speak. I asked for it."
"Then you are——"
"Manöel Valdez. Saltenet, the man who wrote 'La Naïlia,' wrote the man's part for me, because he thought I could sing it, and because I understand Arab music as maybe no other European does. I was brought up in the desert. The girl I love is a daughter of the desert. God! How that music they're playing makes me hear her call me, far away from behind her ocean of dunes! There's a secret link binding our souls together. Nothing can keep them apart. Saltenet was my benefactor. He has done everything for me. He would have made my fortune—after I'd made his; but that's human nature! And twelve nights ago I nearly killed him because he wouldn't let me go when that girl called—my desert princess! He vowed he'd have me arrested—anything to stop me. And he tried to hold me by force. I knocked him down in his own private room at the theatre where we were rehearsing, and then I had to make sure he wasn't dead, for his blood was on my hands, my sleeves, my shirt front. It was only concussion of the brain, but I hoped it would keep him still, until I'd got well away. That afternoon an officer I knew had happened to mention before me that a lot of men were being shipped off to Oran for the Foreign Legion. I remembered. It was as if some voice reminded me. Africa was my goal, but I'd next to no money. I thought, why shouldn't France pay? Well, here I am! Now you know why I must desert. Wouldn't you do the same in my place? Have you got it in you, I wonder, to sacrifice everything in life for a woman?"
Max thought for a moment before risking a reply. Then he answered slowly: "I—almost believe I have. But who knows?"
"Some day you will know," said Manöel Valdez, looking away toward the desert.