"I don't know exactly," Best replied. "Maybe you could help me ride herd on these Bernhardts." He ran a hand through his thin black hair, thinner now by half than when he left the States. "If you could do that, why--you could save my reason." "He wants you to be a Simon Legree," Laure explained. The manager seconded this statement by a nod of his head. "Sure! Crack the whip over 'em. Keep 'em in line. Don't let 'em get married. I thought I was wise to hire good-lookers, but--I was crazy. They smile and they make eyes and the men fight for 'em. They steal 'em away. I've had a dozen battles and every time I've been licked. Already four of my girls are gone. If I lose four more I can't open; I'll be ruined. Oy! Such a country! Every day a new love-affair; every day more trouble--" Laure threw back her dark head and laughed in mischievous delight. "It's a fact," she told Pierce. "The best Best gets is the worst of it. He's not our manager, he's our slave; we have lots of fun with him." Stepping closer to the young man, she slipped her arm within his and, looking up into his face, said, in a low voice: "I knew I could fix it, for I always have my way. Will you go?" When he hesitated she repeated: "Will you go with me or--shall I go with you?" Phillips started. His brain was fogged and he had difficulty in focusing his gaze upon the eager, upturned face of the girl; nevertheless, he appreciated the significance of this audacious inquiry and there came to him the memory of his recent conversation with the Countess Courteau. "Why do you say that?" he queried, after a moment. "Why do you want me to go?" Laure's eyes searched his; there was an odd light in them, and a peculiar intensity which he dimly felt but scarcely understood. "I don't know," she confessed. She was no longer smiling, and, although her gaze remained hypnotically fixed upon his, she seemed to be searching her own soul. "I don't know," she said again, "but you have a--call." In spite of this young woman's charms, and they were numerous enough, Phillips was not strongly drawn to her; resentment, anger, his rankling sense of injury, all these left no room for other emotions. That she was interested in him he still had sense enough to perceive; her amazing proposal, her unmistakable air of proprietorship, showed that much, and in consequence a sort of malicious triumph arose within him. Here, right at hand, was an agency of forgetfulness, more potent by far than the one to which he had first turned. Dangerous? Yes. But his life was ruined. What difference, then, whether oblivion came from alcohol or from the drug of the poppy? Deliberately he shut his ears to inner warnings; he raised his head defiantly. "I'll go," said he. "We leave at daylight," Best told him. CHAPTER XIV