dreamed to notice the change in voice and manner. The warm, provocative,
inherent coquetry was gone from both smile and eyes; instead of a soft,
alluring girl ready to play with him a baffling, blood-stirring game of
flirtation, she was again the sphynx of last night, whose unrevealing
eyes seemed to have looked out over the desert for centuries, until its
infinite heart was as an open page to her, and she repressed in the
scarlet curves of her mouth its eternal, secret enigma.

"We are brother and sister." Hugh edged along the step until he could
lay his head against Pearl's knee. "But we're not blood relations, if
you're curious to know." The insolence of his tone was barely veiled.
"My mother was a circus woman that Mrs. Gallito knew. She deserted me
when I was a baby, and Mrs. Gallito has been all the mother I ever had
or wanted, and Pearl the only sister. I was born blind."

"Oh, Hughie," remonstrated Pearl, "you've got no call to say that. He
don't see with his eyes," she turned to Hanson, "but I never saw anybody
that could see so much."

"How's that?" asked Hanson easily. He was used from long experience to
the temperamental, emotional people of the stage, and he had no
intention of being daunted by any moods these two might exhibit.

"Hughie, what color are Mr. Hanson's clothes?" asked Pearl.

Still with a petulant, disdainful expression, the boy leaned forward and
ran his long, slender fingers with their cushioned tips over Hanson's
coat. "Brown," he replied indifferently.

"He can tell you the color of every flower in the garden, just by