"What do you want me to do? Throw it away?"
"I don't care what you do with it. Only I won't stay in the house with it. It gives me the creeps. You've said entirely too much in your sleep lately—first yellow rugs, and now it's a yellow girl. I'm through!"
Clarke's brows rose in Saracenic arches. And then he smiled with surprizing friendliness and a touch of wonder.
"Di, why didn't you tell me sooner? I could understand your craving alligator pears at 3 in the morning—I might have understood that, but hating a rug is really a new one on me"
"No, stupid, it's nothing like that! I just hate the damned thing, and no more to be said."
"Well, lacking the infallible alibi"—Clarke glared and assumed his fighting face—"if you mean I choose between you and the rug, I'll call a taxi right now."
"Don't bother. I'll walk."
The door slammed.
Clarke twisted his mustache, and achieved a laugh; not merry, but still a laugh. And then he sank back among the cushions.
"Yellow Girl, I thought you were fantastic. . . ."
Le vieux carre wondered when the next morning it was rumored that la belle Livaudaise had been seen hurrying down Saint Peter Street without speaking to any one of the several acquaintances she had met; but when at the Green Shutter and the Old Quarter Bookstore it was announced that Diane was living in a loft of the Pontalba Building, wonder ceased. For Diane's friend Louise had been no less garrulous than she should have been, so that the habitues of the French Quarter were prepared for the news.
And then it was said that to gain admittance to Clarke's studio one must know the code of taps whereby someone who at times left a certain side door bearing bottles of Pernod announced his arrival; for Clarke answered neither doorbell nor telephone. The vendor of Pernod was certainly a discreet person; yet even a discreet seller of absinthe could see no harm in mentioning that his patron found enormous fascination in watching the play of sunlight and the dance of moonbeams on the golden buff pile of a rug that was more a sleeping, breathing creature than any sane child of the loom.
Finally the courier failed to gain admittance, despite his tapping in code. And this he thought worthy of Diane's ear.
"He starves himself, petite—since three days now he has not admitted me. All the while she lies there, gleaming in the moon, that awful rug—mordieu, it is terrible. . . ."
Diane had stedfastly denied that which had been clamoring for recognition. But when this last bit was added to what had gone before, logic gave way, and Diane's fears asserted themselves. That rug was haunted, was bewitched, was bedevilling Clarke; logic or no logic, the fact was plain.
Driven by that monstrous thought, Diane exhumed the little golden keyring and started up Royal Street, determined to cross the barrier before it became impassable. But her determination wavered; and before fitting the well-worn key into the lock, she applied her ear to the keyhole, listened, and heard Clarke's voice.
Diane resisted the temptation to use her key and stage a scene that even in the imperturbable Vieux Carré would be sensational for at least a week. Then her pride conquered, and she achieved a most credible smile of disdain.
