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Coleman remarked that there was no course but to remain in
the street until his dragoman had found them a habitation. It
was a mournful waiting. The students sat on the kerb. Once
they whispered to Coleman, suggesting a drink, but he told
them that he knew only one cafe, the entrance of which would
be in plain sight of the rest of the party. The ladies talked
together in a group of four. Nora Black was bursting with the
fact that her servant had hired rooms in Arta on their outcoming
journey, and she wished Mrs. Wainwright and Marjory to come
to them, at least for a time, but she dared not risk a refusal, and
she felt something in Mrs. Wainwright's manner which led her
to be certain that such would be the answer to her invitation.
Coleman and the professor strolled slowly up and down the
walk.

" Well, my work is over, sir," said Coleman. " My paper told
me to find you, and, through no virtue of my own, I found you.
I am very glad of it. I don't know of anything in my life that has
given me greater pleasure."

The professor was himself again in so far as he had lost all
manner of dependence. But still he could not yet be bumptious.
" Mr. Coleman," he said, "I am placed under life-long obligation
to you. * * * I am not thinking of myself so much. * * * My wife
and daughter---" His gratitude was so genuine that he could not
finish its expression.

" Oh, don't speak of it," said Coleman. " I really didn't do
anything at all."

The dragoman finally returned and led them all to a house
which he had rented for gold. In the great, bare, upper chamber
the students dropped wearily to the floor, while the woman of
the house took the Wainwrights to a more secluded apartment.,
As the door closed on them, Coleman turned like a flash.

" Have a drink," he said. The students arose around him like
the wave of a flood. "You bet." In the absence of changes of
clothing, ordinary food, the possibility of a bath, and in the
presence of great weariness and dust, Coleman's whisky
seemed to them a glistening luxury. Afterward they laid down
as if to sleep, but in reality they were too dirty and
too fagged to sleep. They simply lay murmuring Peter Tounley
even developed a small fever.

It was at this time that Coleman. suddenly discovered his
acute interest in the progressive troubles of his affair of the
heart had placed the business of his newspaper in the rear of
his mind. The greater part of the next hour he spent in getting
off to New York that dispatch which created so much excitement
for him later. Afterward he was free to reflect moodily upon the
ability of Nora Black to distress him. She, with her retinue, had
disappeared toward her own rooms. At dusk he went into the
street, and was edified to see Nora's dragoman dodging along in
his wake. He thought that this was simply another manifestation
of Nora's interest in his movements, and so he turned a corner,
and there pausing, waited until the dragoman spun around
directly into his arms. But it seemed that the man had a note to
deliver, and this was only his Oriental way of doing it.

The note read: " Come and dine with me to-night." It was, not
a request. It was peremptory. "All right," he said, scowling at
the man.

He did not go at once, for he wished to reflect for a time and
find if he could not evolve some weapons of his own. It seemed
to him that all the others were liberally supplied with weapons.

A clear, cold night had come upon the earth when he
signified to the lurking dragoman that he was in
readiness to depart with him to Nora's abode. They passed
finally into a dark court-yard, up a winding staircase, across an
embowered balcony, and Coleman entered alone a room where
there were lights.

His, feet were scarcely over the threshold before he
had concluded that the tigress was now going to try
some velvet purring. He noted that the arts of the
stage had not been thought too cheaply obvious for
use. Nora sat facing the door. A bit of yellow silk
had been twisted about the crude shape of the lamp,
and it made the play of light, amber-like, shadowy and
yet perfectly clear, the light which women love. She
was arrayed in a puzzling gown of that kind of Gre-
cian silk which is so docile that one can pull yards of
it through a ring. It was of the colour of new straw.
Her chin was leaned pensively upon her palm and the
light fell on a pearly rounded forearm. She was
looking at him with a pair of famous eyes, azure, per-
haps-certainly purple at times-and it may be, black
at odd moments-a pair of eyes that had made many
an honest man's heart jump if he thought they were
looking at him. It was a vision, yes, but Coleman's
cynical knowledge of drama overpowered his sense of
its beauty. He broke out brutally, in the phrases of
the American street. "Your dragoman is a rubber-neck.
If he keeps darking me I will simply have to
kick the stuffing out of him."

She was alone in the room. Her old lady had been
instructed to have a headache and send apologies. She was not
disturbed by Coleman's words. "Sit down, Rufus, and have a
cigarette, and don't be cross, because I won't stand it."

He obeyed her glumly. She had placed his chair where not a
charm of her could be lost upon an observant man. Evidently
she did not purpose to allow him to irritate her away from her
original plan. Purring was now her method, and none of his
insolence could achieve a growl from the tigress. She arose,
saying softly: "You look tired, almost ill, poor boy. I will give
you some brandy. I have almost everything that I could think to
make those Daylight people buy." With a sweep of her hand
she indicated the astonishing opulence of the possessions in
different parts of the room.

As she stood over him with the brandy there came through
the smoke of his cigarette the perfume of orris-root and violet.

A servant began to arrange the little cold dinner on a camp
table, and Coleman saw with an enthusiasm which he could not
fully master, four quart bottles of a notable brand of champagne
placed in a rank on the floor.

At dinner Nora was sisterly. She watched him, waited upon
him, treated him to an affectionate inti. macy for which he knew
a thousand men who would have hated him. The champagne
was cold.

Slowly he melted. By the time that the boy came with little
cups of Turkish coffee he was at least amiable. Nora talked
dreamily. " The dragoman says this room used to be part of the
harem long ago." She shot him a watchful glance, as if she had
expected the fact to affect him. "Seems curious, doesn't it? A
harem. Fancy that." He smoked one cigar and then discarded
tobacco, for the perfume of orris-root and violet was making
him meditate. Nora talked on in a low voice. She knew that,
through half-closed lids, he was looking at her in steady
speculation. She knew that she was conquering, but no
movement of hers betrayed an elation. With the most exquisite
art she aided his contemplation, baring to him, for instance,
the glories of a statuesque neck, doing it all with the manner of
a splendid and fabulous virgin who knew not that there was
such a thing as shame. Her stockings were of black silk.

Coleman presently answered her only in monosyllable,
making small distinction between yes and no. He simply sat
watching her with eyes in which there were two little covetous
steel-coloured flames.

He was thinking, "To go to the devil-to go to the devil-to go
to the devil with this girl is not a bad fate-not a bad fate-not a
bad fate."

CHAPTER XVII.

" Come out on the balcony," cooed Nora. "There are
some funny old storks on top of some chimneys near here
and they clatter like mad all day and night."

They moved together out to the balcony, but Nora
retreated with a little cry when she felt the coldness of the
night. She said that she would get a cloak. Coleman was
not unlike a man in a dream. He walked to the rail of the
balcony where a great vine climbed toward the roof. He
noted that it was dotted with. blossoms, which in the deep
purple of the Oriental night were coloured in strange
shades of maroon. This truth penetrated his abstraction
until when Nora came she found him staring at them as if
their colour was a revelation which affected him vitally.
She moved to his side without sound and he first knew of
her presence from the damning fragrance. She spoke just
above her breath. "It's a beautiful evening."
" Yes," he answered. She was at his shoulder. If he
moved two inches he must come in contact. They
remained in silence leaning upon the rail.
Finally he began to mutter some commonplaces which
meant nothing particularly, but into his tone as he mouthed
them was the note of a forlorn and passionate lover. Then
as if by accident he traversed the two inches and his
shoulder was against the soft and yet firm shoulder of
Nora Black. There was something in his throat at this
time which changed his voice into a mere choking noise.
She did not move. He could see her eyes glowing
innocently out of the pallour which the darkness gave to
her face. If he was touching her, she did not seem to
know it.

"I am awfully tired," said Coleman, thickly. "I think I
will go home and turn in."

" You must be, poor boy," said Nora tenderly.

"Wouldn't you like a little more of that champagne?"

" Well, I don't mind another glass."

She left him again and his galloping thought pounded to
the old refrain. " To go to the devil-to go to the devil-to go
to the devil with this girl is not a bad fate-not a bad fate-
not a bad fate." When she returned he drank his glass of
champagne. Then he mumbled: " You must be cold. Let
me put your cape around you better. It won't do to catch
cold here, you know."

She made a sweet pretence of rendering herself to his
care. " Oh, thanks * * * I am not really cold * * * There
that's better."

Of course all his manipulation of the cloak had been a fervid
caress, and although her acting up to this point had remained in
the role of the splendid and fabulous virgin she now turned her
liquid eyes to his with a look that expressed knowledge, triumph
and delight. She was sure of her victory. And she said:
"Sweetheart * * * don't you think I am as nice as Marjory ?" The
impulse had been airily confident.
It was as if the silken cords had been parted by the sweep of
a sword. Coleman's face had instantly stiffened and he looked
like a man suddenly recalled to the ways of light. It may easily
have been that in a moment he would have lapsed again to his
luxurious dreaming. But in his face the girl had read a fatal
character to her blunder and her resentment against him took
precedence of any other emotion. She wheeled abruptly from
him and said with great contempt: " Rufus, you had better go
home. You're tired and sleepy, and more or less drunk."

He knew that the grand tumble of all their little embowered
incident could be neither stayed or mended. "Yes," he
answered, sulkily, "I think so too." They shook hands huffily
and he went away.

When he arrived among the students he found that they had
appropriated everything of his which would conduce to their
comfort. He was furious over it. But to his bitter speeches they
replied in jibes.

"Rufus is himself again. Admire his angelic disposition. See
him smile. Gentle soul."

A sleepy voice said from a comer: " I know what pinches
him."

" What ? " asked several.

"He's been to see Nora and she flung him out bodily."

" Yes?" sneered Coleman. "At times I seem to
see in you, Coke, the fermentation of some primeval
form of sensation, as if it were possible for you to de-
velop a mind in two or three thousand years, and then
at other times you appear * * * much as you are
now."

As soon as they had well measured Coleman's temper all of
the students save Coke kept their mouths tightly closed. Coke
either did not understand or his mood was too vindictive for
silence. " Well, I know you got a throw-down all right," he
muttered.

"And how would you know when I got a throw down? You
pimply, milk-fed sophomore."

The others perked up their ears in mirthful appreciation of
this language.

" Of course," continued Coleman, " no one would protest
against your continued existence, Coke, unless you insist on
recalling yourself violently to people's attention in this way.
The mere fact of your living would not usually be offensive to
people if you weren't eternally turning a sort of calcium
light on your prehensile attributes."
Coke was suddenly angry, angry much like a peasant, and his
anger first evinced itself in a mere sputtering and spluttering.
Finally he got out a rather long speech, full of grumbling noises,
but he was understood by all to declare that his prehensile
attributes had not led him to cart a notorious woman about the
world with him. When they quickly looked at Coleman they saw
that he was livid. " You-"

But, of course, there immediately arose all sorts of protesting
cries from the seven non-combatants. Coleman, as he took two
strides toward Coke's corner, looked fully able to break him
across his knee, but for this Coke did not seem to care at all. He
was on his feet with a challenge in his eye. Upon each cheek
burned a sudden hectic spot. The others were clamouring, "Oh,
say, this won't do. Quit it. Oh, we mustn't have a fight. He didn't
mean it, Coleman." Peter Tounley pressed Coke to the wall
saying: " You damned young jackass, be quiet."

They were in the midst of these. festivities when a door
opened and disclosed the professor. He might. have been
coming into the middle of a row in one of the corridors of the
college at home only this time he carried a candle. His speech,
however, was a Washurst speech : " Gentlemen, gentlemen,
what does this mean ? " All seemed to expect Coleman to make
the answer. He was suddenly very cool. "Nothing, professor," he
said, " only that this-only that Coke has insulted me. I suppose
that it was only the irresponsibility of a boy, and I beg that you
will not trouble over it."

" Mr. Coke," said the professor, indignantly, " what have
you to say to this? " Evidently he could not clearly see Coke,
and he peered around his candle at where the virtuous Peter
Tounley was expostulating with the young man. The figures of
all the excited group moving in the candle light caused vast and
uncouth shadows to have conflicts in the end of the room.

Peter Tounley's task was not light, and beyond that he had
the conviction that his struggle with Coke was making him also
to appear as a rowdy. This conviction was proven to be true by
a sudden thunder from the old professor, " Mr. Tounley, desist ! "

In wrath he desisted and Coke flung himself forward. He
paid less attention to the professor than if the latter had been a
jack-rabbit. " You say I insulted you? he shouted crazily in
Coleman's face.

"Well * * * I meant to, do you see ? "

Coleman was glacial and lofty beyond everything.
"I am glad to have you admit the truth of what I have said."

Coke was, still suffocating with his peasant rage, which
would not allow him to meet the clear, calm
expressions of Coleman. "Yes * * * I insulted you * * * I insulted
you because what I said was correct * * my prehensile attributes
* * yes but I have never----"

He was interrupted by a chorus from the other students.
"Oh, no, that won't do. Don't say that. Don't repeat that, Coke."

Coleman remembered the weak bewilderment of
the little professor in hours that had not long passed,
and it was with something of an impersonal satisfac-
tion that he said to himself: " The old boy's got his
war-paint on again." The professor had stepped
sharply up to Coke and looked at him with eyes that
seemed to throw out flame and heat. There was a
moment's pause, and then the old scholar spoke, bit-
ing his words as if they were each a short section of
steel wire. " Mr. Coke, your behaviour will end your
college career abruptly and in gloom, I promise you.
You have been drinking."

Coke, his head simply floating in a sea of universal defiance,
at once blurted out: " Yes, sir."

"You have been drinking?" cried the professor, ferociously.
"Retire to your-retire to your----retire---" And then in a voice of
thunder he shouted: "Retire."

Whereupon seven hoodlum students waited a decent
moment, then shrieked with laughter. But the old
professor would have none of their nonsense. He quelled them
all with force and finish.

Coleman now spoke a few words." Professor, I
can't tell you how sorry I am that I should be
concerned in any such riot as this, and since we are
doomed to be bound so closely into each other's
society I offer myself without reservation as being
willing to repair the damage as well as may be, done. I
don t see how I can forget at once that Coke's conduct
was insolently unwarranted, but * * * if he has anything
to sayof a nature that might heal the
breach I would be willing to to meet
him in the openest manner." As he made these re-
marks Coleman's dignity was something grand, and,
Morever, there was now upon his face that curious
look of temperance and purity which had been noted
in New York as a singular physical characteristic. If
he. was guilty of anything in this affair at all-in fact,
if he had ever at any time been guilty of anything-
no mark had come to stain that bloom of innocence.
The professor nodded in the fullest appreciation and
sympathy. " Of course * * * really there is no other
sleeping placeI suppose it would be better-"
Then he again attacked Coke. "Young man, you
have chosen an unfortunate moment to fill us with a
suspicion that you may not be a gentleman. For the
time there is nothing to be done with you." He addressed
the other students. " There is nothing for
me to do, young gentleman, but to leave Mr. Coke in your care.
Good-night, sirs. Good-night, Coleman." He left the room with
his candle.

When Coke was bade to " Retire " he had, of course, simply
retreated fuming to a corner of the room where he remained
looking with yellow eyes like an animal from a cave. When the
others were able to see through the haze of mental confusion
they found that Coleman was with deliberation taking off his
boots. " Afterward, when he removed his waist-coat, he took
great care to wind his large gold watch.

The students, much subdued, lay again in their
places, and when there was any talking it was of an
extremely local nature, referring principally to the
floor As being unsuitable for beds and also referring
from time to time to a real or an alleged selfishness
on the part of some one of the recumbent men. Soon
there was only the sound of heavy breathing.

When the professor had returned to what he called the
Wainwright part of the house he was greeted instantly with the
question: "What was it?" His wife and daughter were up in
alarm. "What was it " they repeated, wildly.

He was peevish. " Oh, nothing, nothing. But that young
Coke is a regular ruffian. He had gotten him. self into some
tremendous uproar with Coleman. When I arrived he seemed
actually trying to assault him. Revolting! He had been drinking.
Coleman's behaviour, I must say, was splendid. Recognised at once the
delicacy of my position-he not being a student. If I had found
him in the wrong it would have been simpler than finding him in
the right. Confound that rascal of a Coke." Then, as he began a
partial disrobing, he treated them to grunted scrap of information.
" Coke was quite insane * * * I feared that I couldn't
control him * * * Coleman was like ice * * * and as much as I
have seen to admire in him during the last few days, this quiet
beat it all. If he had not recognised my helplessness as far as he
was concerned the whole thing might have been a most
miserable business. He is a very fine young man." The
dissenting voice to this last tribute was the voice of Mrs.
Wainwright. She said: " Well, Coleman drinks, too-everybody
knows that."

" I know," responded the professor, rather bashfully, but I
am confident that he had not touched a drop." Marjory said
nothing.

The earlier artillery battles had frightened most of the
furniture out of the houses of Arta, and there was left in this
room only a few old red cushions, and the Wainwrights were
camping upon the floor. Marjory was enwrapped in Coleman's
macintosh, and while the professor and his wife maintained
some low talk of the recent incident she in silence had turned
her cheek into the yellow velvet collar of the coat. She felt
something against her bosom, and putting her hand
carefully into the top pocket of the coat she found three cigars.
These she took in the darkness and laid aside, telling herself to
remember their position in the morning. She had no doubt that
Coleman: would rejoice over them, before he could get back to,
Athens where there were other good cigars.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE ladies of the Wainwright party had not complained
at all when deprived of even such civilised advantages as a
shelter and a knife and fork and soap and water, but Mrs.
Wainwright complained bitterly amid the half-civilisation of
Arta. She could see here no excuse for the absence of several
hundred things which she had always regarded as essential to
life. She began at 8.30 A. M. to make both the professor and
Marjory woeful with an endless dissertation upon the beds in
the hotel at Athens. Of course she had not regarded them at
the time as being exceptional beds * * * that was quite true, *
* * but then one really never knew what one was really missing
until one really missed it * * * She would never have thought
that she would come to consider those Athenian beds as
excellent * * * but experience is a great teacher * * * makes-
one reflect upon the people who year in and year out have no
beds at all, poor things. * * * Well, it made one glad if one did
have a good bed, even if it was at the time on the other side of
the world. If she ever reached it she did not know what could
ever induce her to leave it again. * * * She would never be
induced---

"'Induced!'" snarled the professor. The word represented to
him a practiced feminine misusage of truth, and at such his
white warlock always arose. "" Induced!' Out of four American
women I have seen lately, you seem to be the only one who
would say that you had endured this thing because you had
been 'induced' by others to come over here. How absurd!"

Mrs. Wainwright fixed her husband with a steely eye. She
saw opportunity for a shattering retort. " You don't mean,
Harrison, to include Marjory and I in the same breath with
those two women? "

The professor saw no danger ahead for himself. He merely
answered: " I had no thought either way. It did not seem
important."

" Well, it is important," snapped Mrs. Wainwright.

" Do you know that you are speaking in the same breath of
Marjory and Nora Black, the actress? "

" No," said the professor. " Is that so ? " He was astonished,
but he was not aghast at all. "Do you mean to say that is Nora
Black, the comic opera star ? "

" That's exactly who she is," said Mrs. Wainwright,
dramatically. " And I consider that-I consider that Rufus
Coleman has done no less than-misled us."

This last declaration seemed to have no effect upon the
professor's pure astonishment, but Marjory looked at her
mother suddenly. However, she said no word,
exhibiting again that strange and, inscrutable countenance
which masked even the tiniest of her maidenly emotions.

Mrs. Wainwright was triumphant, and she immediately set
about celebrating her victory. " Men never see those things,"
she said to her husband. " Men never see those things. You
would have gone on forever without finding out that your-your-
hospitality was, being abused by that Rufus Coleman."

The professor woke up." Hospitality ?" he said,
indignantly. " Hospitality ? I have not had any
hospitality to be abused. Why don't you talk sense?
It is not that, but-it might-" He hesitated and
then spoke slowly. " It might be very awkward. Of
course one never knows anything definite about such
people, but I suppose * * * Anyhow, it was strange
in Coleman to allow her to meet us. "

"It Was all a pre-arranged plan," announced the
triumphant Mrs. Wainwright. " She came here on putpose
to meet Rufus Coleman, and he knew it, and I should not
wonder if they had not the exact spot picked out where
they were going to meet."

"I can hardly believe that," said the professor, in distress.
"I can, hardly believe that. It does, not seem to me that
Coleman--"

" Oh yes. Your dear Rufus Coleman," cried Mrs.
Wainwright. " You think he is very fine now. But
I can remember when you didn't think---"

And the parents turned together an abashed look at their
daughter. The professor actually flushed with shame. It seemed
to him that he had just committed an atrocity upon the heart of
his child. The instinct of each of them was to go to her and
console her in their arms. She noted it immediately, and seemed
to fear it. She spoke in a clear and even voice. " I don't think,
father, that you should distress me by supposing that I am
concerned at all if Mr. Coleman cares to get Nora Black over
here."

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