demurred. "It is time for us to go to our concert."

But Billy had no intention of relinquishing her before the music
ceased. It was a one step, and it carried them with it in a gaiety
of rhythm to which the girl gave herself with the light-hearted
abandon of a romping child. Her light feet seemed scarcely to brush
the floor; the delicate flush of her cheeks deepened with the
stirring blood; her lips parted breathlessly over white little
teeth, and when her eyes, intensely blue, met Billy's, the smile in
them quickened in sparkling radiance. She was the very spirit of the
dance; she was Youth and Joy incarnate. And the heart behind the
white shirt bosom near which her fairy hair was floating began to
pitch and toss like a laboring ship in the very devil of a sea.

"I think I'll go up the Nile again," said Billy irrelevantly.

She laughed elfishly at him, her head swaying faintly with the
rhythm.

"Three weeks," said Billy under his breath, "that's twenty-one
days--at ten dollars a day. Now I wonder how many hours--or
moments--that rash outlay would assure?"

"You miser! You calculating----"

"You have to calculate--when you're an engineer."

"But to be sure spoils the charm! Now I--I do things on impulse."

"If you will only have the impulse to dance with me--on the
Nile----"

"Why not risk it?" she challenged lightly, arrant mischief in her
eyes. She added, in mocking tone, "There's a moon."

"That's a clincher," said he, with an air of decision. A faint
question dwelt in the look she gave him. It was ridiculous to think
he meant anything he was saying, but--she felt suddenly a little
confused and shy under that light-hearted young gaiety which took
every man's friendly admiration happily for granted.

In silence they finished the dance, and this time the music failed
them when they were near the wide entrance to the room where the
Evershams, beckoning specters, were standing.

"I'm keeping them waiting," said the girl, with a note of concern
which she had not shown over her performance in that line earlier in
the day. But Billy had no time for humorous comparisons.

"When can I see you again?" he demanded bluntly. "Can I see you
to-morrow?"

"To-morrow is a very busy day," she parried.

"But the evening----?"

"I shall be here," she admitted.

"And could I--could I take you--and the Evershams, of
course--somewhere, anywhere, you'd like to go? If there's any other
concert----"

She shook her he