d she would glower at it for a
moment.

"You are sure he is not at the Hotel Kraemer?"

"Madama, one of the maids there is of my own people, the Eskenazi, and
she has assured me there is no one like the picture there. But the
general will arrive in a day or two. Perhaps he is a general, Madama?"
he hinted.

"He? Not even a little one! Ha--ha!" she chuckled again. "The dear fool!
But hear me. He may be with the general. He may be what they call an
_aide_. He may...." She broke off, staring hard at the youth, suddenly
remembering that he might not come at all. "Go!" she ordered absently,
"find him and thy fortune is made."

But the idea of a letter was attractively novel to her, and she
immediately saw herself inspiring the dear fool with some of her own
grandiose ideas. She even thought of sounding Esther upon the likelihood
of her husband writing a letter. She stood by the window looking down
into the garden where Mr. Spokesly sat smoking and gazing at the blue
bowl of the gulf and the distant gray-green olive groves beyond the
city. She was deliberating upon the significance of her courier's latest
breathless news from the kitchen of the Hotel Kraemer. The general was
arriving from the south. He and his staff had been as far as Jerusalem
after the great victory over the British and were due to-morrow in the
city on their way back to Constantinople. Evanthia's courage had
suffered from the contradictory nature of her earlier news. It was part
of her life to sift and analyze the words that ran through city and
country from mouth to mouth. She had never had any real confidence in
any other form of information. If she hired any one to write a letter,
her words vanished into incomprehensible hieroglyphics and she had no
guarantee the man did not lie. And when Amos had told her on the ship
what he had heard in the Rue Voulgaroktono that they had reached Aidin,
she had jumped to the conclusion that Lietherthal was with a party on
their way from Constantinople to Smyrna. And now her quick brain saw the
reason why they had not arrived before. He had joined the staff of the
general and had gone away south, through Kara-hissar, to Adana and
Aleppo to Damascus. And now they were on their way back. She looked down
into the garden, where Mr. Spokesly, quietly smoking, was reflecting
upon the mystery of a woman's desires. Here, after all, she had
forgotten all about that other fellow, who was probably having a good
time in Athen