“Fritzi must disappear—­for the night?” said the little Viennese smiling wisely, but with a trace of cynicism.  “The little American must not be reminded—­h’m?  We will go....  For you have done so much for me, you big, strange, platonic Mr. Billy!” Dazzlingly she smiled on him, her dark eyes quizzically provocative.

“You’re not at the Grand?”

“No, not that.”  She named another.  “You come see me, when that girl goes—­h’m?”

Billy caught the German’s eyes upon him, in their depths a faint trouble, a vague appeal.  He comprehended that the infatuated young man had engaged in the tortuous business of keeping sparks from tinder.

“I’m gone to-morrow,” he replied.

“Maybe in Vienna?” went on the dancer.  “We go soon—­another day or so maybe—­and then back over the water to that life I left!  Oh, my God, how happy I am to go back to it all—­to dance, to sing—­Oh, I could kiss you, Mr. Billy, if it would not make you so shock!” she added with a malicious little laugh.  “You know the news—­about him—­h’m?”

“Him?”

“Kerissen—­that devil fellow.  He is in Cairo with a fever—­in the hospital there.  A man who come from that hospital just tells us—­just by accident he tell us.  A bad fever, too!” She laughed in satisfaction.  “I hope he burn good and hard up,” she added, with energetic spite, “and teach him not to act like a wild man.  That man say he got a bad hand,” she added, with a shrewd glance at Billy.

The young man merely grunted.  “I hope he has,” he replied.  “It matches the rest of him.  Good night.”

“Good night—­for the now—­h’m, Mr. Billy?” and with a quick little clasp of his big hand and a gay little backward look the girl was gone into the shadows upon the arm of her jealous cavalier.

Three people were waiting at the statue foot where he had left the English girl.

“They’ve come at last, Mr. Hill,” Lady Claire’s voice struck very gaily upon him, “and Miss Falconer has just come to tell us we must see the colored lights in the great court—­and then go home.  So hurry!”

She turned as she spoke and put her arm suddenly through Falconer’s who was standing next her.  “Come on,” she lightly commanded, and promptly led the way.

That was something like a fairy godmother!  Into Billy’s eyes flashed a warm light of gladness.  Some moments out of that wretched evening should yet be his own, bitter-sweet as they were in their sharp finality.

He turned to the blue-cloaked figure at his side.  “Do you like colored fire?” he demanded.  “Won’t you come and see something else—­something I’ve wanted to see and to have you see with me?  It’s near the way out.  We can meet them at the pylon.”

Of course she acquiesced.  That was part of the cursed restraint between them, he was reminded, to have her accept so obediently any point-blank request of his.  But for the nonce he was glad.  He wanted those few minutes desperately.