Verbeena returned to her rooms and undressed herself. She couldn't keep a maid. They always ended by calling her "Sir." At this connecting point or juncture, there came a knock on the door and Verbeena called in her fresh, young baritone: "Who the dickens is this and what do you want at this hour?" "A note for you, monsieur--pardon, mademoiselle." "O, stick it under the door," she replied. But when she had looked at the note she gurgled: "Zingo! But this will put Tawdry in a bait! He will be furious at me! As if I should worry! He forgets I'm twenty-one and my punch is getting better every day." She nodded stoutly. "Brother Tawd has clubbed my curls about my ears for the last time. And I had no heart for this scheme of his! But the other stunt--the desert, freedom, kicking along the old Sahara man enough for any emergency and my own little notion of what may come of it--those things for Verbeena!" She looked again at the note in her hand. "God bless Butternut," said Verbeena Mayonnaise. She ran to the balcony, leaned far over and kicked up her heels and burst into wild and rippling laughter at certain thoughts of Tawdry and of Butternut which flooded beneath her carmine cap of hair, until Lord Tawdry looking through the adjoining lattice said sternly: "See here, young fellow, me lad, cut that!" "O, cut your throat, you big mooch," she replied haughtily. "I'm an icicle myself but I know a grand moon when I see one!" But she wasn't looking at the moon at all. She was leaning out as far as she could and peering on the balcony below where she thought she had seen a sign of white drapery. But when she looked again it was gone. Had she only known! If she had she'd have known it was Lady Speedway stretching her ear to try and find out why a messenger was going at so late an hour to the room of a single girl like Miss Mayonnaise. But as it was, Verbeena squatted on the balcony rail lighting cigarette after cigarette as she looked out into the market place where the moon and her nostrils told her was the caravan she had engaged from Musty Ale for her wild, mad adventure. If Butternut had acted differently--but Butternut hadn't! Dear little Butternut, sweet little Butternut! She had his note to prove it conclusively to Lord Tawdry. To-morrow would see her plunging forth into the yellow wilderness, the vast places, the majestic silences, the---- Verbeena felt a sudden, mad boyish temptation to shoot her cigarette stump into the eye of a native sleeping at the foot of the verandah. But, very unusual with her in such cases, she refrained. It might start some trouble and she didn't want that to happen now. Nothing must prevent her journey upon the desert! From her window she looked out toward it, so wonderful, so superb, so exquisite, weird and beautiful. Exactly, she told herself, like a big, black smudge.