"Good Lord!" exclaimed Neeland. "That girl is dead right!"
Sengoun threw back his handsome head and laughed without restraint;
and the gipsies laughed, too, their beautiful eyes and teeth flashing
under their black cascades of unbound hair.
"Show me your palms," said Nini, and drew Sengoun's and Neeland's
hands across the table, holding them in both of hers.
"See," she added, nudging Fifi with her shoulder, "both of them born
under the Dark Star! It is war they shall live to see--war!"
"Under the Dark Star, Erlik," repeated the other girl, looking closely
into the two palms, "and there is war there!"
"And death?" inquired Sengoun gaily. "I don't care, if I can lead a
sotnia up Achi-Baba and twist the gullet of the Padisha before I say
Fifi--Nini!"
The gipsies searched his palm with intent and brilliant gaze.
"Zut!" said Fifi. "Je ne vois rien que d'l'amour et la guerre aux
dames!"
"T'en fais pas!" laughed Sengoun. "I ask no further favour of
Fortune; I'll manage my regiment myself. And, listen to me, Fifi," he
added with a frightful frown, "if the war you predict doesn't arrive,
I'll come back and beat you as though you were married to a Turk!"
While they still explored his palm, whispering together at intervals,
Sengoun caught the chorus of the air which the orchestra was playing,
and sang it lustily and with intense pleasure to himself.
Neeland, unquiet to discover how much these casual strangers knew
about his own and intimate affairs, had become silent and almost
glum.
But the slight gloom which invaded him came from resentment toward
those people who had followed him from Brookhollow to Paris, and who,
in the very moment of victory, had snatched that satisfaction from
him.
He thought of Kestner and of Breslau--of Scheherazade, and the
terrible episode in her stateroom.
Except that he had seized the box in the Brookhollow house, there was
nothing in his subsequent conduct on which he could plume himself. He
could not congratulate himself on his wisdom; sheer luck had carried
him through as far as the rue Soleil d'Or--mere chance, and that
capricious fortune which sometimes convoys the stupid, fatuous, and
astigmatic.
Then he thought of Rue Carew. And, in his bosom, an intense desire to
distinguish himself began to burn.
If there were any way on earth to trace that accursed box---He turned abruptly and looked at the two gipsies, who had relinquished
Sangoun's hand and who were still conversing together in low tones
while Sangoun beat time on the jingling table top and sang joyously
at the top of his baritone voice: