"I'm waiting, Duane," said Naïda plaintively.
So he turned away with her through the woods, where one by one the brilliant lantern flames were dying out, and where already in the east a silvery lustre heralded the coming dawn.
When he returned, Geraldine was gone. At the house somebody said she had come in with Kathleen, not feeling well.
"The trouble with that girl," said a man whom he did not know, "is that she's had too much champagne."
"You lie," said Duane quietly. "Is that perfectly plain to you?"
For a full minute the young man stood rigid, crimson, glaring at Duane. Then, having the elements of decency in him, he said:
"I don't know who you are, but you are perfectly right. I did lie. And I'll see that nobody else does."
[CHAPTER XII
THE LOVE OF THE GODS]
Two days later the majority of the people had left Roya-Neh, and the remainder were preparing to make their adieux to the young chatelaine by proxy; for Geraldine had kept her room since the night of the masked fête, and nobody except Kathleen and Dr. Bailey had seen her.