The Streets of Ascalon Part 8

"I wonder."

"You'll wonder more than ever in a few moments.... I'm going to tell you who you are. But first of all I want you to fix the forfeit----"

"Why--I don't know.... What do you want of me?" she asked, mockingly.

"Whatever you care to risk."

"Then you'll have to name it. Because I don't particularly care to offer you anything.... And please hasten--I'll be missed presently----"

"Won't you bet one day out of your life?"

"No, I won't. I told you I wouldn't."

"Then--one hour. Just a single hour?"

"An hour?"

"Yes, sixty minutes, payable on demand: If I win, you will place at my disposal one entire hour out of your life. Will you dare that much, pretty dancer?"

She laughed, looked up at him; then readjusting her mask, she nodded disdainfully. "Because," she observed, "it is quite impossible for you ever to guess who I am. So do your very worst."

He sprang from the bal.u.s.trade, landing lightly, his left hand spread over his heart, his bi-corne flourished in the other.

"You are Strelsa Leeds!" he said in a low voice.

The golden dancer straightened up to her full height, astounded, and a bright flood of colour stained her cheeks under the mask's curved edge.

"It--it is impossible that you should know--" she began, exasperated.

"How _could_ you? Only one person knew what I was to wear to-night!

I came by myself with my maid. It--it _is_ magic! It is infernal--abominable magic----"

She checked herself, still standing very straight, the gorgeous, blossom-woven cloth-of-gold rippling; the jewels shooting light from the fillet that bound her hair.

After a silence:

"How did you know?" she asked, striving to smile through the flushed chagrin. "It is perfectly horrid of you--anyhow----"

Curiosity checked her again; she stood gazing at him in silence, striving to pierce the eye-slits of that black skin-mask--trying to interpret the expression of the mischievous mobile mouth below it--or, perhaps the malice was all in those slanting slits behind which two strange eyes sparkled steadily out at her from the shadow.

"Strelsa Leeds," he repeated, and flourished one hand in graceful emphasis as she coloured hotly again. And he saw the teeth catch at her under lip.

"It is outrageous," she declared. "Tell me instantly who you are!"

"First," he insisted, mischievously, "I claim the forfeit."

"The--the forfeit!" she faltered.

"Did you not lose your wager?"

She nodded reluctantly, searching the disguised features before her in vain for a clew to his ident.i.ty. Then, a trifle uneasily:

"Yes, of course I lost my wager. But--I did not clearly understand what you meant by an hour out of my life."

"It is to be an hour at my disposal," he explained with another grotesque bow. "I think that was the wager?"

"Y-yes."

"Unless," he remarked carelessly, "you desire the--ah--privilege and indisputable prerogative of your delightful s.e.x."

"The privilege of my s.e.x? What is that?" she asked, dangerously polite.

"Why, to change your divine mind--repudiate the obligation----"

"Harlequin!"

"Madame?" with an elaborate and wriggling bow.

"I pay what I owe--always.... _Always!_ Do you understand?"

The Harlequin bowed again in arabesques, very low, yet with a singular and almost devilish grace:

"Madame concedes that the poor Harlequin has won his wager?"

"Yes, I do--and you don't appear to be particularly humble, either."

"Madame insists on paying?" he inquired suavely.

"Yes, of course I do!" she said, uneasily. "I promised you an hour out of my life. Am I to pay it now?"

"You pay by the minute--one minute a day for sixty days. I am going to take the first minute now. _Perhaps_ I may ask for the other fifty-nine, also."

"How?"

"Shall I show you how?"

"Very well."

"A magic pa.s.s or two, first," he said gaily, crooking one spangled knee and spinning around. Then he whipped out his lathe-sword, held it above his head, coolly pa.s.sed a glittering arm around her waist, and looked down into her flushed face.

"You will have to count out the sixty seconds," he said. "I shall be otherwise occupied, and I can't trust myself to do two things at once."

"_What_ are you about to do? Sink through a trap-door with me?"

"I am about to salute you with the magic kiss. After that you'll be my Columbine forever."

"That is not included in the bet! Is it?" she asked in real consternation.

"I may do as I please with my hour, may I not?"