Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/211

 whereon a long-dead artist had limned the figure of a little laughing, naked boy, with a bow and a quiver full of arrows, and two downy wings sprouting somewhere near his chubby shoulder-blades.

O'Rourke grinned at the childish god, deciphering the stilted French inscription beneath its feet. "The Inn of the Winged God," he read aloud. "Sure, 'tis meself that's the superstitious one—a rank believer in signs. I'm taking ye, ye shameless urchin," he apostrophized the god of love, "for a sign that there's—drink within!" He chuckled, thinking: 'Tis here that I'm to meet Chambret, if need be, for consultation. I mind me he said the inn was but a step this side the frontier. Be that token, 'tis himself that should be coming down the road, ere long, galumphing in that red devil-wagon av his."

But the question remained: Was he to pause for refreshment, or to push on despite his great thirst? For it seemed as though all the dust in the road that had not found lodgment upon his body had settled in his throat.

The fluttering of a woman's skirts put a period to his hesitancy; a girl appeared and stood for a moment in the doorway of the Inn of the Winged God, gazing upon the newcomer with steady eyes that were bright beneath level brows. A tall girl, seemingly the taller since slight and supple, she was, and astonishingly good to look upon: slender and darkly beautiful.

Even at a distance O'Rourke could see as much and imagine the rest; and, more, he saw that she wore the peasant dress peculiar to that Department—wore it with an entrancing grace, adorning it herself rather than relying upon it to enhance her charms. A crimson head-dress of some fashion confined her hair; and that same was dark—nay, black. And there was a kerchief about her throat, like snow