Jules Victor adroitly busied the maid whom Janet Fairbarn had dispatched
to "play propriety," and the other London girl had quietly stolen
away to her own last rendezvous with her mysterious London lover,
"Mr. Joseph Smith," otherwise "Jack Blunt, Esq., of the Swell Mob
of the Thames."
The whispers of the stately young Prince brought crimson blushes to
the face of the glowing girl, whose answering murmurs were as low
as the siren voice of Swinburne's "small serpents, with soft, stretching
throats." They had a double secret to keep now. A momentous, a
dangerous one; for in the depths of the Tropical Gardens of Rozel,
the passionate hearted Alixe Delavigne was hidden, waiting this very
morning to clasp again the beautiful orphan to a bosom throbbing in
wildest love. Prince Djiddin, always on his guard, artfully turned
back and busied the maid, when she was released from Jules Victor's
vociferous bar-gaining, with a half-hour's choosing her "fairing,"
out of the lively peddler's pretty stock. The woman's vanity made
her an easy victim. The "descendant of Thibetan Kings" could not,
of course, speak intelligibly, but the yellow sovereigns which he
carried were the magic talisman which opened at once the pretty
maid servant's softened heart.
It was a long half hour before the happy Nadine Johnstone returned
to join the kinsman of the Maharajah of Cashmere. Her eyes were
gleaming in a tender, dawning lovelight, her lips still thrilling
with Alixe Delavigne's warm kisses.
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