Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/264

 no more than already he knew—that she was accustomed to come to Shepheard's every evening, to dine there in the company of her Egyptian escort. Who either happened to be and whence they came, was a mystery apparently unsolvable.

For his own part, O'Rourke was now determined that the mystery should be probed. Hitherto he had hesitated; though always her eyes had sought his, and though always in their depth he had read something—an interest, a faint recognition—never until this day had she so compelled his gaze to hers, so given him a glimpse of her own soul through its windows.

"Sure," swore the Irishman, "'tis more than mortal man can stand—'tis beyond endurance, beyond the limits of dacint flirtation—that look she gave me. I'll know her before another sun sets!"

To-day's was setting now; presently it would be night. O'Rourke bowed his head over his meditative cigar, deliberating ways and means to reach his end. The life on Shepheard's terrace quickened with the promise of the night's coolness; in the street the traffic moved at a more lively pace. And, presently, out of the gathering gloom, with a skirling of bagpipes and the clatter of side-arms, came marching a regiment of anomalies—kilted Scotchmen, bare knees moving to and fro in rhythmic regularity, in Egypt!—the Cameron Highlanders of the Army of Occupation.