Athalie

She was still playing the quaint, sweet dance called "The Orchid," and

Hargrave was leaning on the piano beside her watching Cecil and Athalie

drifting through the dusk to the music's rhythm, when the door opened

and somebody came in.

Athalie, in Cecil's arms, turned her head, looking back over her

shoulder. Dane loomed tall in the twilight.

"Oh!" she exclaimed; "I am so glad!"--slipping out of Cecil's arms and

wheeling on Dane, both hands outstretched.

The others came up, also, with quick, gay greetings, and after a

moment or two of general and animated chatter Athalie drew Dane into a

corner and made room for him beside her on the sofa. Peggy had turned

on the music machine again and, snubbing Hargrave, was already

beginning the Miraflores with Cecil Reeve.

Athalie said: "Are you well? That's the first question."

He said he was well.

"And did you find your lost city?"

He said, quietly: "We found Yhdunez."

"We?"

"I and my white companion."

"Why didn't you bring him with you this evening?" she asked. "Did you

tell him I invited him?"

"Yes."

"Oh.... Couldn't he come?"

And, as he made no answer: "Couldn't he?" she repeated. "Who is he,

anyway--"

"Clive Bailey."

She sat motionless, looking at him, the question still parting her

lips. Dully in her ears the music sounded. The pallor which had

stricken her face faded, grew again, then waned in the faint return of

colour.

Dane, who was looking away from her rather fixedly, spoke first, still

not looking at her: "Yes," he said in even, agreeable tones, "Clive

was my white companion.... I gave him your note to read.... He did not

seem to think that he ought to come."

"Why?" Her lips scarcely formed the word.

"--As long as you were not aware of whom you were inviting.... There

had been some misunderstanding between you and him--or so I

gathered--from his attitude."

A few moments more of silence; then she was fairly prepared.

"Is he well?" she asked coolly.

"Yes. He had one of those nameless fevers, down there. He's coming out

of it all right."

"Is he--his appearance--changed?"

"He's changed a lot, judging from the photographs he showed me taken

three or four years ago. He's changed in other ways, too, I fancy."

"How?"

"Oh, I only surmise it. One hears about people--and their

characteristics.... Clive is a good deal of a man.... I never had a

better companion.... There were hardships--tight corners--we had a bad

time of it for a while, along the Andes.... And the natives are

treacherous--every one of them.... He was a good comrade. No man can

say more than that, Miss Greensleeve. That includes about everything I

ever heard of--when a man proves to be a good comrade. And there is no

place on earth where a man can be so thoroughly tried out as in that

sunless wilderness."