Part 36 (1/2)
”A little. I don't believe I have the energy to go out with you.”
Still fondling the willing cat he said: ”What's wrong? Something's wrong, isn't it?”
”No indeed.”
He turned and gave her a square look: ”You're quite sure?”
”Quite.”
”Oh; all right. Will you let me have dinner here with you?”
She said without embarra.s.sment: ”I neglected my marketing: there's very little in the pantry.”
”Well,” he said, ”I'm hungry and I'm going to call up the Hotel Trebizond and have them send us some dinner.”
She seemed inclined to demur, but he had his way, went to the telephone and gave his orders.
The dinner arrived in due time and was excellent. And when the remains of the dinner and the waiter who served it had been cleared out, Athalie felt better.
”You ought to go to the country for two or three weeks,” he remarked.
”Why don't _you_ go?” she asked, smilingly.
”Don't need it.”
”Neither do I, Captain Dane. Besides I have to continue my search for a position.”
”No luck yet?”
”Not yet.”
He mused over his cigar for a few moments, lifted his blond head as though about to speak, but evidently decided not to.
She had taken up her sewing and was now busy with it. From moment to moment Hafiz took liberties with her spool of thread where he sprawled beside her, patting it this way and that until it fell upon the floor and Dane was obliged to rescue it.
It had grown cooler. A breeze from the open windows occasionally stirred her soft hair and the smoke of Dane's cigar. They had been silent for a few moments. Threading her needle she happened to glance up at him, and saw somebody else standing just behind him--a tall man, olive-skinned and black-bearded--and knew instantly that he was not alive.
Serenely incurious, she looked at the visitor, aware that the clothes he wore were foreign, and that his features, too, were not American.
And the next moment she gazed at him more attentively, for he had laid one hand on Dane's shoulder and was looking very earnestly across at her.
He said distinctly but with a foreign accent: ”Would you please say to him that the greatest of all the ancient cities is hidden by the jungle near the source of the middle fork. It was called Yhdunez.”
”Yes,” she said, unconscious that she had spoken aloud.
Dane lifted his head, and remained motionless, gazing at her intently.
The visitor was already moving across the room. Halfway across he looked back at Athalie in a pleasant, questioning manner; and she nodded her rea.s.surance with a smile. Then her visitor was there no longer; and she found herself, a trifle confused, looking into the keen eyes of Captain Dane.
Neither spoke for a moment or two; then he said, quietly: ”I did not know you were clairvoyant.”