The happy Major was soon
triumphant at all points, and Francois was hastily dispatched to
the Photographic Atelier to order a half dozen copies of the card
portrait which displayed to Alan Hawke the rosebud face of the
Veiled Beauty of Delhi. The adventurer made haste to excuse himself
for interrupting the flow of the Parnassian stream, and walked
backward from the presence of the poor old woman whom he had duped,
as if she were a queen.
It was an easy matter for the Englishman to waylay and intercept
the returning man-at-arms of this castle of cosmopolitan beauty.
Francois had duly availed himself of his lengthened absence,
and his thick tongue and swimming eye spoke of potations of the
Kirsch-wasser dear to the Swiss heart. Major Hawke impressed the
servitor with the necessity of bringing the pictures down to his
rooms upon the morrow, and then the Major judiciously duplicated his
five-franc piece. The happy butler winked with an acute divination
of the Major's purpose and went unsteadily back to the whirlpool
of learning. The Major cheerfully went on his own way to meet Miss
Genie Forbes, with whom he had established a private understanding
as to a runaway visit to the Cathedral, to be followed by an
impromptu breakfast. "I can stand the old Gorgon's dinner," mused
the happy adventurer, "after a tete-a-tete with Miss Genie, and as
for Francois, I will also waste a bottle of good Cognac on him.
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