ith the luminous turban spoke suddenly to a girl in trailing
satin with a muff of flowers in her hand. Shoulders and throat gleamed
superbly above the line of golden satin; there were flashing topazes in
her hair and about her throat; and the slender, arched foot in the
satin slipper was small and finely moulded.

"Tell me," he begged insistently, "who you are! You've grace and poise
enough for a dozen women. And who taught you how to walk? Few women
know how."

The girl, with a delicate air of hauteur, flung back her head
imperiously and turned away.

"And you've wonderful eyes--black and wistful and tragic and
beautiful!" persisted the man impudently. "Wonderful, sparkling lady
of gold and black, tell me who you are!"

"Who," said the girl gravely in a clear, rich contralto, "who are you?"

The man laughed but his eyes lingered on the firm, proud scarlet lips
and the small even teeth.

"Call me the 'Black Palmer,'" said he. "There's a tremendous
significance in my rig to be sure, but it's only for one man."

"What," asked the girl seriously, "is a palmer?"

Mystified the Black Palmer stared.

"You honestly mean that you don't know?"

"I speak ever the truth," said the proud scarlet lips below the golden
mask. "When I ask, I mean that I do not know."

"And this in a world of sophistication!" murmured the man blankly, but
the girl was moving off with graceful majesty through the trees, the
jewels in her hair alive in the lantern-lit dusk. The Black Palmer
sprang after her.

"Tell me, I beg of you," he exclaimed earnestly, "you who are so grave
and beautiful and apart from this world of mine, like a fresh keen wind
in a scorching desert, in Heaven's name tell me who you are!"

But the girl's dark, fine eyes flashed quick rebuke.

Nothing daunted the Black Palmer impudently stripped the golden mask
from her face. The soft yellow light of the Venetian lamp in the tree
above her fell full upon the lovely oval of a face so peculiar in its
striking beauty of line and vivid coloring that he fell back staring.

"Lord, what a face!" exclaimed the Greek, too taken aback to resent the
Palmer's insolence.

And the Bedouin rumbled: "Exquisite! But she is not of your land.
Italian, Spanish, or some bizarre mingling of strange races, but none
of your colder lands!"

Now as the Black Palmer stared at the dark, accusing eyes of the girl,
a singular thing occurred. His cloak of impudence fell suddenly from