“Well, now, who knows. She calls herself—” the secretary broke off and craned his neck, trying to make out more clearly the identity of a little group of people who had just entered the dining-room. “She usually comes here to dine,” he went on, slowly, “And maybe—yes! There she is. She’s the lady approaching—the one in grey. She calls herself the Countess Elsa del Ouro Preto. Sounds Spanish, but she is really German as they make ’em.”
Topham never knew how he got to his feet. There was a roaring in his ears and the lights danced around him. Only one thing held steady—the splendid eyes of the Countess Elsa.
She was coming toward him. Her tiny jewelled slippers made no sound on the mats that covered the floor, but her silken robes swished as she moved. In the aureole of her hair trembled a single diamond; a belt of rubies clasped her waist. Ah! How beautiful she was. How she fitted into the scheme of things in this bizarre eastern world! Topham’s glass shattered in his hand and the pieces tinkled on the floor as he looked.
Then she saw him. For an instant the traitor blood ebbed to her heart, leaving her face whiter than man had ever seen it before. Then it rushed back in a crimson tide, burning. But she walked on. Her eyes held Topham’s for a second; then wandered indifferently past. Carelessly she turned to the huge blonde German who walked by her side—a man with the broad ribbon of the Black Eagle across his breast—and made some laughing remark. Indifferently, without sign of recognition, she passed—passed to where an obsequious waiter held a chair ready.
Topham’s legs gave way under him. It needed not the protests of the horror-stricken secretary to drag him down into his chair.
“For God’s sake, man! Careful! Everybody is watching you! Do you know her?”
Topham shook his head slowly. “I thought I did,” he muttered. “But—I do not.”
CHAPTER XV
At last it was over. The intolerable evening had dragged itself to an end. Topham had laughed and joked and made merry far beyond his custom or his nature, trying to dull the sting at his heart and to conceal from Stites and his companions the misery that oppressed him. He had met scores of men and women; had received dozens of informal invitations from the men; and had laid the foundations of many friendships.
But all the while he was longing to be alone—to get time to think what was portended by this amazing apparition of the woman he loved. At last, when the throng had thinned; when the last of his new-made friends had nodded himself away; when even Stites had left him with a warning that on the morrow he would “show him some stunts”, Topham wandered to the edge of the broad terrace in front of the hotel and sat down to think.