helter to be affrighted at this intrusion of fingers and toes.

From the jutting top of this projection he surveyed his further
field of operation. The window with a light was two stories higher
yet and to the right. There were two other windows with lights on
the second story, very much farther along, and he wondered painfully
if these were the rooms of Aimee.

That boudoir in which he had hidden through the end of the long
reception had been upon the water. And there had been a door into an
adjoining room, for he had seen a sallow-faced attendant passing in
and out.

A wild longing seized him to crawl on and over into those windows.
But it was a difficult, almost an impossible distance, and even when
there he would be like a fly on the outside of a pane with no way of
getting in.

The unknown girl had promised him a way through her window and he
had confidence in her ingenuity and daring.

So he went on, worming cautiously along old gutters and ledges and
jutting balconies until at last he was clasping the lower grill of
that mashrubiyeh from which her light gleamed.

Instantly the light went out.

"Wait!" he heard her voice say sharply over his head. She was
standing by the window fumbling with the woodwork, and in a moment
he heard the click of a knob and then, just opposite his head, the
screening grill slipped aside and an aperture appeared.

"Quick!" admonished the voice, and quickly indeed he drew himself up
and in, reflecting whimsically as he did so that this girl had first
helped him out of a hole and then into one.

The next moment she had moved the grill into place and lifted the
cover she had placed over her triplet of candles on a stand.

Triumphant, her eyes dancing, her teeth a gleam of light between
those scarlet lips of hers, she looked at him for the admiration
she saw twinkling back at her in his eyes.

"But not me--no!" she protested, her supple hands gesturing towards
the magic casement. "I found it here. It is very old--you
understand? Some other, long ago, found time dull and so--"

Delightedly she shared the flavor of that secret of the vagabond
lady of long ago who had devised this cunning entrance for her
lover.

On some dark night like this, with the gatekeeper drowsy with old
wine, some other stripling had climbed that worn facade before him
and slipped through the secret space and stood triumphantly before
some daring, laughing girl who had cast aside for him her veil and