Billy was suddenly sobered. "Well, nobody but you and I and the Baroff know it now," he said, "and I think we can keep the Baroff's mouth shut.... I'll see her in the morning. You'd better get in a nap to-morrow, and I will, too, for we'll want steady nerves. Good night; I'm glad you're going with me."
"I'm damned if I'm glad," said the honest Englishman, with a wry grin. "If we get our throats cut, I hope Miss Beecher will return from the desert in time for our obsequies."
"Something in that red-headed chap I like after all," soliloquized Billy B. Hill, as he turned toward his long-deferred repose. "Hanged if he hasn't grit to go into a thing on an off chance!... Now, as for me, I'm sure."
CHAPTER XIII
TAKING CHANCES
Late as he went to sleep, Billy B. Hill was up in good season that Sunday morning. The need for cautioning Fritzi Baroff haunted him, and he was not satisfied until he had had breakfast with that lively young lady and laid down the law to her upon the situation.
She was very loath not to talk about herself at first. She wanted to tell her tale to the papers and see if one of them would be hardy enough to publish the story of the outrageous incarceration; she wanted to cable the Viennese theater where she had played of her sensational detention—in short, she wanted to get all the possible publicity out of her durance vile and to advertise her small person from Cairo to the Continent.
But Billy was urgent. "You just bide a wee on this publicity stunt," he demanded. "Cable your manager and press agent all you want to—but don't talk around the hotel here—and whatever you do and whatever you say, keep Miss Beecher's name and mine out of it."
He was very decided about that, and because she was very grateful to him and because she liked him and because she lacked other friends and other pocketbooks, the little Viennese held her tongue as directed. And she borrowed as much money as Billy would lend her, and drove off to the small shops which were open that day, and found a frock or two and a hat which she declared passable, and returned transfigured to the hotel and rendered the table where she lunched with Billy, with the air of possessing him, quite the most conspicuous in the room. The ladies gazed past them with chill eyes; the men stared covertly, with the surreptitious envy with which even the most virtuous of men surveys a lucky devil. And Billy sadly perceived that he was acquiring a reputation.