"Good night—for the now—h'm, Mr. Billy?" and with a quick little clasp of his big hand and a gay little backward look the girl was gone into the shadows upon the arm of her jealous cavalier.
Three people were waiting at the statue foot where he had left the English girl.
"They've come at last, Mr. Hill," Lady Claire's voice struck very gaily upon him, "and Miss Falconer has just come to tell us we must see the colored lights in the great court—and then go home. So hurry!"
She turned as she spoke and put her arm suddenly through Falconer's who was standing next her. "Come on," she lightly commanded, and promptly led the way.
That was something like a fairy godmother! Into Billy's eyes flashed a warm light of gladness. Some moments out of that wretched evening should yet be his own, bitter-sweet as they were in their sharp finality.
He turned to the blue-cloaked figure at his side. "Do you like colored fire?" he demanded. "Won't you come and see something else—something I've wanted to see and to have you see with me? It's near the way out. We can meet them at the pylon."
Of course she acquiesced. That was part of the cursed restraint between them, he was reminded, to have her accept so obediently any point-blank request of his. But for the nonce he was glad. He wanted those few minutes desperately.
"What is it?" she murmured.
"I'll show you," and then, as he turned from the way they had come and followed a winding path that dipped lower and lower between the dune-like piles of sand, "It's the Sacred Lake," he explained. "Perhaps you've seen it in the daytime—but I've been wanting to see it at night."
"I think I just caught the glint of it from the pylon," she observed.