"I did work in the clay room till the hour for this ball," he said, replying to her surprise. "And after I speak to you on the hall I become a good Mohammedan very rapid—so rapid I see you and your most beautiful sister come in by the great door. Many others see also. We say she make a more fine Princess than the one——"
"Oh, hush!" cautioned Patricia, grasping his arm in her agitation. "She'll hear you! She's just back of us this minute."
Doris Leighton, with a rather flushed face, leaned forward as Patricia spoke and touched her on the shoulder.
"I must congratulate you, Peri Banou," she said with sharp gayety. "Everyone is saying that the Princess—your sister—is the clou of the ball.",
Patricia had an uneasy sense of insincerity in the light tone, but a swift glance into the wide eyes of the smiling Doris reassured her.
"She is lovely, isn't she?" she replied ardently. "But her dress isn't half so gorgeous as yours," she added heartily.
Doris Leighton's lashes drooped till her eyes were a narrow line of inscrutable blue.
"Thank you so much," she said in a tone of such even sweetness that Patricia felt uncomfortable, though she did not know why.
Doris sank back to her place and Patricia turned her attention to the laughable parodies and excellent dances and necromancy that filled the first half of the program. It was all hugely diverting, and she laughed and applauded with the rest, but all the while at the back of her mind there was a little uneasiness, a sense of insecurity and disillusionment that flavored all the gayety with its fleeting bitterness. She was uneasy till she had found Elinor and in the telling of the insignificant incident had regained enough confidence to laugh at her foolish disquiet.
"I'm always making mountains out of mole-hills, and having you level them for me, Norn," she said, taking a glass of sherbet from the flower-wreathed tray of the charming slave. "I wish I wasn't such an alarmist. I felt as frantic as though Doris Leighton had drawn a dagger, and now I can see what a goose I am."