The stranger turned his eyes toward Jane’s. The beauty of those dark eyes startled her. Fire opals! They seemed to dig down into her very soul, as if searching for something. He bowed gravely and limped back to his table.

“I begin to understand,” was Dennison’s comment.

“Understand what?”

“All this racket about those beads. My father and this man Cunningham in the same town generally has significance. It is eight years since I saw Cunningham. Of course I could not forget his face, but it’s rather remarkable that he remembered mine. He is—if you tear away the romance—nothing more or less than a thief.”

“A thief?”—astonishedly. 65

65

“Not the ordinary kind; something of a prince of thieves. He makes it possible—he and his ilk—for men like my father to establish private museums. And now I’m going to ask you to do me a favour. It’s just a hunch. Hide those beads the moment you reach your room. They are yours as much as any one’s, and they may bring you a fancy penny—if my hunch is worth anything. Hang that pigtail, for getting you mixed up in this! I don’t like it.”

Jane’s hand went slowly to her throat; and even as her fingers touched the beads, now warm from contact, she became aware of something electrical which drew her eyes compellingly toward the man with the face of Ganymede and the limp of Vulcan. Four times she fought in vain, during dinner, that drawing, burning glance—and it troubled her. Never before had a man’s eye forced hers in this indescribable fashion. It was almost as if the man had said, “Look at me! Look at me!”

After coffee she decided to retire, and bade Dennison good-night. Once in her room she laid the beads on the dresser and sat down by the window to recast the remarkable ending of this day. From the stars to the room, from the room to the stars, her glance roved uneasily. Had she fallen upon an adventure? Was Dennison’s theory correct regarding the beads? She rose and went 66 to the dresser, inspecting the beads carefully. Positively glass! That Anthony Cleigh should be seeking a string of glass beads seemed arrant nonsense.

66

She hung the beads on her throat and viewed the result in the mirror. It was then that her eye met a golden glint. She turned to see what had caused it, and was astonished to discover on the floor near the molding that poor Chinaman’s brass hand 

 Prev. P 37/167 next