e a Russian. I cannot stick a penknife in my
throat or eat glass. To do that one must be a monster of courage.
And I have no poison to eat, no gas to turn on.... Then the mood
goes and the day is bright and I look in the glass and say, 'Die?
Die for you? Kill all this beautiful young thing that has such joy
to dance and sing? Never! Some day I will be out of this and laugh
at the memory of such blackness.' And so I practice my voice and my
steps--and I wait my chance. When you came, yesterday, first I was
furious to be pushed out, then I think it is the chance, maybe. I
think you would be glad to help me to get out and not to stay to
make you jealous. But if you are also in the trap----" Her voice
fell dispiritedly. She drew a long, weary breath.

"But I shall not stay in the trap." Arlee spoke with desperate
resolve, her eyes on the sputtering candle, her palms against her
burning cheeks, her finger tips pressed into her throbbing temples.
"I shall not let him make me afraid like this. He must know he will
be found out--he cannot play like this with an American girl! I
shall face him to-morrow. I shall demand my freedom. I shall tell
him that I did tell people at the hotel--that he will be discovered.
I will make _him_ afraid!"

"You cannot. He watches what happens on the outside--he knows."

After a pause, "Oh, why did I come!" said Arlee in choking
bitterness.

The little dancer turned, and, sitting there cross-legged on the
couch like a squat little idol, her chin sunk in her palm, her dark
eyes staring unwinkingly at Arlee, gave the girl a long, strange
scrutiny.

"You do not like him?" she said.

"I hate him!"

"But you came to tea?"

"To meet his sister. To see the palace."

"His sister? Did he show you one?"

"Yes--a woman with red hair. A Turkish woman. She spoke French to
me."

"Ah--that would be Seniha!"

"Seniha? I don't know. She played the piano. Has he more than one
sister?"

But as she put the question a sudden flash of intuition forestalled
the dancer's mocking cry of "Sister!" And as Fritzi hurried on, "He
has no sister--not here, anyway," Arlee's thoughts ran back to the
beginning of that very evening which seemed so long ago when she had
plunged wildly into those unknown rooms, and saw again that
painted, jeweled woman with her outstretched arms.

"She is his wife," the Viennese was saying.

"I--I did not know that he was married."

"Oh, Turkish marriages." The other shrugged,