The man made, with a graceful gesture of his hand, a map in the air.
"It was like this," he said; "I think he fell into the bed of an old river. I think he drew himself up the bank. I followed the track of his blood. I was too weak to go any farther, Excellency."
"And how could you go now?" she asked.
"By caravan, like a merchant, secretly. I would find him."
Julia Redmond put out a slim hand, white as a gardenia. The native lifted it and touched his forehead with it.
"Hammet Abou," she said, "go away for to-night and come to-morrow—we will see you." And without waiting to speak again to Monsieur de Tremont, the native slid away out of the garden like a shadow, as though his limbs were not weak with disease and his breast shattered by shot.
When Monsieur de Tremont had walked once around the garden, keeping his eyes nevertheless on the group, he came back toward Julia Redmond, but not quickly enough, for she ran up the stairs and into the house with Sabron's packet in her hand.
CHAPTER XVIII
TWO LOVELY WOMEN
There was music at the Villa des Bougainvilleas. Miss Redmond sang; not Good-night, God Keep You Safe, but other things. Ever since her talk with Hammet Abou she had been, if not gay, in good spirits, more like her old self, and the Marquise d'Esclignac began to think that the image of Charles de Sabron had not been cut too deeply upon her mind. The marquise, from the lounge in the shadow of the room, enjoyed the picture (Sabron would not have added it to his collection) of her niece at the piano and the Duc de Tremont by her side. The Comtesse de la Maine sat in a little shadow of her own, musing and enjoying the picture of the Duc de Tremont and Miss Redmond very indifferently. She did not sing; she had no parlor accomplishments. She was poor, a widow, and had a child. She was not a brilliant match.