“I noticed you were wearing one other evenings,” said Billy, the Artful, “so I thought——­”

“You know whether this is yours or not, don’t you, Clara?” interposed the mother.

“They all look alike,” murmured Clara Eversham, eying helplessly the silver border.

Billy permitted himself to look at Miss Beecher.  That young person was looking at him and there was a disconcerting gaiety in her expression, but at sight of him she turned her head, faintly coloring.  He judged she recalled his unmannerly eavesdropping that afternoon.

“Pardon—­excuse me—­but that is to me belonging,” panted an agitated but firm voice behind them, and two stout and beringed hands seized upon the glittering shawl in Miss Eversham’s lax grasp.  “It but just now off me falls,” and the German lady looked belligerent accusation upon the defrauding Billy.

There was a round of apologetic murmurs, unacknowledged by the recipient, who plunged away with her shawl, as if fearing further designs upon it.  Billy laughed down at the Evershams.

“I feel like a porch climber making off with her belongings.  But I had seen you with——­”

“I do think I had mine this evening, after all,” murmured Clara, with a questioning glance after the departing one.

“An uncultured person!” stated Mrs. Eversham.

Miss Beecher said nothing at all.  Her faint smile was mockingly derisive.

“Anyway you must let me get you some coffee,” Billy most inconsequentially suggested, beckoning to the red-girdled Mohammed with his laden tray, and because he was young and nice looking and evidently a gentleman from their part of the world and his evening clothes fitted perfectly and had just the right amount of braid, Mrs. Eversham made no objection to the circle of chairs he hastily collected about a taborette, and let him hand them their coffee and send Mohammed for the cream which Miss Eversham declared was indispensable for her health.

“If I take it clear I find it keeps me awake,” she confided, and Billy deplored that startling and lamentable circumstance, and passed Mrs. Eversham the sugar and wondered if they could be the Philadelphia Evershams of whom he had heard his mother speak, and regretted that they were not, for then they would know who he was—­William B. Hill of Alatoona, New York.  He found it rather stupid traveling alone.  Of course one met many Americans, but——­

Mrs. Eversham took up that “but” most eagerly, and recounted multiple and deplorable instances of nasal countrywomen doing the East and monopolizing the window seats in compartments, and Miss Eversham supplied details and corrections.

Still Miss Beecher said nothing.  She had a dreamy air of not belonging to the conversationalists.  But from an inscrutable something in her appearance, Billy judged she was not unentertained by his sufferings.

At the first pause he addressed her directly.  “And how do you like Cairo?” was his simple question.  That ought, he reflected, to be an entering wedge.