"That girl is one who will do a little for money, you understand," said the Viennese, "and I have told her to look sharp out for a foreign gentleman who come to save me. You see I have sent for a friend, and I think that he—but never mind. That girl she come running this afternoon to where I am shut in way back in the palace, and she say that a foreign gentleman is painting a picture out in the street, and he stare very cunning at her. So I tell her to find out if he is the one for me, and to tell him to come quick this night. She was afraid to take note—afraid the eunuch catch her. So she went to you. She told afterwards that you ask her if there is any strange lady there anxious to get away, and she give you the message and my handkerchief and you say you will come—and my, how you give me one great surprise!"
"And a great disappointment," said Billy grinning.
"Oh, no, no," she denied, eyes and lips all mischievous smiles. "I say to myself, 'My God! That is a fine-looking young man! He and I will have something to say to each other'—h'm?"
"Now who in the world are you?" demanded Billy bluntly. "And how did you happen to get into all this?"
Volubly she told. She dwelt at picturesque length upon her shining place upon the Viennese stage; she recounted her triumphs, she prophesied the joy of the playgoers at her return to them. Darkly she expatiated upon the villainy of the Turkish Captain, who had lured her to such incarceration. Gleefully she displayed the diamonds upon her small person which she was extracting from that affair.
"Not so bad, after all—h'm?" she demanded, in a brazen little content. "Maybe that prison time make good for me," and Billy shook his head and chuckled outright at the little baggage.
But through his amusement a prick of uneasiness was felt. The picture she had painted of the Captain corroborated his wildest imaginings.
"You're dead sure you know all that was going on in that palace?" he demanded. "There wasn't any American girl coaxed into it on some pretext?"
He wanted merely the reassurance of her answer, but to his surprise and growing alarm she hesitated, looking at him half fearfully and half ashamedly. "Oh, I—I don't know about that," she murmured, with evasive eyes. "An American girl—very light hair—yes?"
"Very light hair—Oh, good God!" He leaned forward, gripping her wrist as if afraid she would spring out of the carriage. "You said she wasn't there," he thrust at her in a voice that rasped.