entire party rose to their feet, the dragoman holding a hurried
whispered conversation with the men who each, and successively, and
vehemently, shook their heads, leaving the women asking of themselves
how on earth they were to continue existing relations with the men
during the interminable weeks to Australia.

Jill, feeling almost faint from suppressed emotion and a revival of
hunger, stood a little on one side watching them. An Eastern dancing
house is a strange place in which to make the final decision of one's
life, but in just such a spot she made hers. She knew that she had
only to make up the tale of a lost boat, and something would be done
for her; in fact she could probably go as lady's maid to the Americans
on their _tour de monde_, having overheard them complaining bitterly of
their own French maid who had not been retrieved at Algiers. But her
whole soul suddenly rising in mutiny against the stultifying
civilisation of the West, she finally made up her mind to stay with the
strangers until the hour came when she could slip out of the hotel
where they were staying the night, into oriental liberty, and glamour,
and unknown possibilities. So she sat next the marchese at dinner,
whose love-making was on exactly the same line as his clothes, and
having found out from the maid in the ladies' room just how to get to
the end of the town in which was situated the Camel King's house, she
waited for a desirable opportunity, and slipped out of the hotel on the
pretence of looking at the stars, knowing that her unwitting hosts
would think she had simply gone to bed.




CHAPTER IX