ombination
lock in all this world."

Seagreave and Gallito laughed, but paid no further heed to him, and
Harry turned to Pearl with a pretense of disappointment.

"I thought I should see a butterfly," he said, "a butterfly that had
flown up from the land of eternal summer, and you're only a chrysalis."

"It's too cold for butterflies up here," she laughed. "Wait until I get
down to the warm hall." But although she returned his banter, she did
not look at him, her eyes were downcast, and on the drive down the hill
she scarcely spoke. Seagreave was one of those rare persons who respect
another's mood of silence, and consequently he did not notice this new
constraint which had overfallen her.

The hall, lighted with bull's-eye lanterns, was crowded with people,
every one of the chairs taken and every inch of standing room occupied.
There was no platform, but the space upon which Pearl was to dance was
screened off by red curtains.

But even before she entered the little dressing booth prepared for her,
she hastened to peep through the curtains, scanning the audience with an
eager eye. Her face fell as she saw that Hanson, true to his promise,
was there, and on one of the front seats, not far from Seagreave and Bob
Flick, who were sitting together. His eyes were dull, his face flushed,
and he lurched flaccidly in his chair; he had been drinking heavily all
day.

He was wondering dully as he sat there if she would enter in the same
indifferent manner that she had adopted the first night he had seen her
down in the desert. Probably she would; it had been very effective.

But the time for conjecture was over. The curtains were drawn aside, and
Hugh sat down at the piano and began to play a seductive, sensuous
accompaniment. Then through a crimson curtain at the rear Pearl flashed
in as if blown by the mountain wind. The chrysalis had cast aside its
shell and this tropical butterfly had emerged. Her skirts were of yellow
satin, and from a black bodice her beautiful bare shoulders rose half
revealed and half concealed by her rose-wreathed, white _manton de
Manila_. In her black, shining hair, just over one ear, was a bunch of
scarlet, artificial blossoms.

She floated about the floor for a moment or two like a thistle-down
blown hither and thither by the caprice of the wind, scarcely seeming to
touch the ground, upborne by the music-tide. Throughout her career she
was always at her best when she took those first few mom