Lolita had balanced herself on the edge of the table and Gallito bent forward and scratched her head, making little clucking noises in his throat the while:  “Our guest is a great poker player, Lolita, he understands how to make a bluff, but,” again that single grating note of a laugh, “assure him, my Lolita, that he will be cold-decked.”

Again Hanson was almost betrayed into making his threat then and there.  He leaned forward and shook his forefinger under the Spaniard’s eyes, his face was purple, but just in time he remembered himself, closed his mouth and drew back.

“Bob, Bob,” croaked Lolita, “mi jasmin Pearl, mi corazon.”

“A most intelligent bird, you see, Mr. Hanson,” observed Gallito, with saturnine politeness.

Hanson turned away impatiently.  “I will see your daughter this afternoon,” he said.

Gallito had begun to roll a fresh cigarette, but now, checking himself abruptly, he threw a long comprehensive glance at the cloudless brazen sky, and then, squinting his eyes, studied for a second or two the equally brazen desert.

“I think not, Mr. Hanson,” he said, with assured finality in his voice.  “I do not think you will see my daughter to-day.  What?  Going so soon?  Another glass of cognac?  No.  Adios, then.  Adios.”

CHAPTER VI

Hanson walked away, more disturbed in mind by his interview with Gallito than he would have thought possible an hour or two earlier.  Something in the finality of the Spaniard’s voice when making those last predictions, his evidently sincere belief that his daughter would not appear under Hanson’s management, had impressed the latter in spite of himself, causing him seriously to question the extent of his influence over Pearl, a weakness which he had not previously permitted himself.

He strove with all the force of his optimistic will to throw off the depression which deepened with each moment, assuring himself that he was tired, that all morning he had played a part, every faculty on the alert; and that this growing dissatisfaction and unrest were only the evidence of a natural reaction.

He attempted to buttress his hope with mental argument, logical, even final, but singularly unconvincing where Pearl was concerned, as anything logical and final must ever be.  He tried to recall in detail stories he had heard of her avarice and her coquetries; he thought of her jewels, her name, her wiles.  Who was she to object to past peccadillos on his part?  Then, uncomforted, he sought to reassure himself with the remembrance of her love for him, ardent and beautiful as the sun on the desert, but her image rose on the dark of his mind like a flame, veering and capricious, or as the wind, lingering, caressing, yet ever fleeing.

He was tormented by the remembrance also of strange phases of her which he divined but could not analyze.  Again, he would in fancy look deep into her dark eyes, demanding that his imagination revive for him those moments when his heart had thrilled to the liquid languor of her gaze, and instead he saw only the world-weariness of that sphynx glance which seemed to brood on uncounted centuries, and far back in her eyes, illusive and brief as the faint, half seen shadow on a mirror, he discerned mockery and disdain.