Utter silence had claimed again the cave of the golden dragon. Gianapolis sat alone in the place, smoking a cigarette, and gazing crookedly at the image on the ivory pedestal. Then, glancing at his wrist-watch, he stood up, and, stepping to the entrance door, was about to open it...  
“Ah, so! You go—already?”—
 
Gianapolis started back as though he had put his foot upon a viper, and turned.
 
The Eurasian, wearing her yellow, Chinese dress, and with a red poppy in her hair, stood watching him through half-shut eyes, slowly waving her little fan before her face. Gianapolis attempted the radiant smile, but its brilliancy was somewhat forced tonight.
 
“Yes, I must be off,” he said hurriedly; “I have to see someone—a future client, I think!”
 
“A future client—yes!”—the long black eyes were closed almost entirely now. “Who is it—this future client, that you have to see?”
 
“My dear Mahara! How odd of you to ask that”...
 
“It is odd of me?—so!... It is odd of me that I thinking to wonder why you alway running away from me now?”
 
“Run away from you! My dear little Mahara!”—He approached the dusky beauty with a certain timidity as one might seek to caress a tiger-cat—“Surely you know”...
 
She struck down his hand with a sharp blow of her closed fan, darting at him a look from the brilliant eyes which was a living flame.
 
Resting one hand upon her hip, she stood with her right foot thrust forward from beneath the yellow robe and pivoting upon the heel of its little slipper. Her head tilted, she watched him through lowered lashes.
 
“It was not so with you in Moulmein,” she said, her silvery voice lowered caressingly. “Do you remember with me a night beside the Irawaddi?—where was that I wonder? Was it in Prome?—Perhaps, yes?... you threatened me to leap in, if... and I think to believe you!—I believing you!”
 
“Mahara!” cried Gianapolis, and sought to seize her in his arms.
 
Again she struck down his hand with the little fan, watching him continuously and with no change of expression. But the smoldering fire in those eyes told of a greater flame which consumed her slender body and was potent enough to consume many a victim upon its altar. Gianapolis' yellow skin assumed a faintly mottled appearance.
 
“Whatever is the matter?” he inquired plaintively.
 
“So you must be off—yes? I hear you say it; I asking you who to meet?”
 
“Why do you speak in English?” said Gianapolis with a faint irritation. “Let us talk...”
 
She struck him lightly on the face with her fan; but he clenched his teeth and suppressed an ugly exclamation.
 
“Who was it?” she asked, musically, “that say to me, 'to hear you speaking English—like rippling water'?”
 
“You are mad!” muttered Gianapolis, beginning to drill the points of his mustache as was his manner in moments of agitation. His crooked eyes were fixed upon the face of the girl. “You go too far.”
 
“Be watching, my friend, that you also go not too far.”
 
The tones were silvery as ever, but the menace unmistakable. Gianapolis forced a harsh laugh and brushed up his mustache furiously.
 
“What are you driving at?” he demanded, with some return of self-confidence. “Am I to be treated to another exhibition of your insane jealousies?”...
 
“AH!” The girl's eyes opened widely; she darted another venomous glance at him. “I am sure now, I am SURE!”
 
“My dear Mahara, you talk nonsense!”
 
“Ah!”
 
She glided sinuously toward him, still with one hand resting upon her hip, stood almost touching his shoulder and raised her beautiful wicked face to his, peering at him through half-closed eyes, and resting the hand which grasped the fan lightly upon his arm.
 
“You think I do not see? You think I do not watch?”—softer and softer grew the silvery voice—“at Olaf van Noord's studio you think I do not hear? Perhaps you not thinking to care if I see and hear—for it seem you not seeing nor hearing ME. I watch and I see. Is it her so soft brown hair? That color of hair is so more prettier than ugly black! Is it her English eyes? Eyes that born in the dark forests of Burma so hideous and so like the eyes of the apes! Is it her white skin and her red cheeks? A brown skin—though someone, there was, that say it is satin of heaven—is so tiresome; when no more it is a new toy it does not interest”...
 
“Really,” muttered Gianapolis, uneasily, “I think you must be mad! I don't know what you are talking about.”
 
“LIAR!”
 
One lithe step forward the Eurasian sprang, and, at the word, brought down the fan with all her strength across Gianapolis' eyes!
 
He staggered away from her, uttering a hoarse cry and instinctively raising his arms to guard himself from further attack; but the girl stood poised again, her hand upon her hip; and swinging her right toe to and fro. Gianapolis, applying his handkerchief to his eyes, squinted at her furiously.
 
“Liar!” she repeated, and her voice had something of a soothing whisper. “I say to you, be so careful that you go not too far—with me! I do what I do, not because I am a poor fool”...
 
“It's funny,” declared Gianapolis, an emotional catch in his voice—“it's damn funny for you—for YOU—to adopt these airs with me! Why, you went to Olaf van”...
 
“Stop!” cried the girl furiously, and sprang at him panther-like so that he fell back again in confusion, stumbled and collapsed upon a divan, with upraised, warding arms. “You Greek rat! you skinny Greek rat! Be careful what you think to say to me—to ME! to ME! Olaf van Noord—the poor, white-faced corpse-man! He is only one of Said's mummies! Be careful what you think to say to me... Oh! be careful—be very careful! It is dangerous of any friend of—MR. KING”...
 
Gianapolis glanced at her furtively.
 
“It is dangerous of anyone in a house of—MR. KING to think to make attachments,”—she hissed the words beneath her breath—“outside of ourselves. MR. KING would not be glad to hear of it... I do not like to tell it to MR. KING”...
 
Gianapolis rose to his feet, unsteadily, and stretched out his arms in supplication.
 
“Mahara!” he said, “don't treat me like this! dear little Mahara! what have I done to you? Tell me!—only tell me!”
 
“Shall I tell it in English?” asked the Eurasian softly. Her eyes now were nearly closed; “or does it worry you that I speak so ugly”...
 
“Mahara!”...
 
“I only say, be so very careful.”
 
He made a final, bold attempt to throw his arms about her, but she slipped from his grasp and ran lightly across the room.
 
“Go! hurry off!” she said, bending forward and pointing at him with her fan, her eyes widely opened and blazing—“but remember—there is danger! There is Said, who creeps silently, like the jackal”...
 
She opened the ebony door and darted into the corridor beyond, closing the door behind her.
 
Gianapolis looked about him in a dazed manner, and yet again applied his handkerchief to his stinging eyes. Whoever could have seen him now must have failed to recognize the radiant Gianapolis so well-known in Bohemian society, the Gianapolis about whom floated a halo of mystery, but who at all times was such a good fellow and so debonair. He took up his hat and gloves, turned, and resolutely strode to the door. Once he glanced back over his shoulder, but shrugged with a sort of self-contempt, and ascended to the top of the steps.
 
With a key which he selected from a large bunch in his pocket, he opened the door, and stepped out into the garage, carefully closing the door behind h............