By Thursday afternoon Sally's confidence in the efficacy of her disguise had mounted perilously high. The policemen who strolled grandly through the tents, proud of not having to pay for their fun, accorded her admiration or good-natured skepticism but no suspicion.
The city papers had apparently lost interest in the hunt for David Nash, university student and farm hand, wanted for assault with intent to kill and for moral delinquency, and in Sally Ford, runaway ward of the state and juvenile paramour of the youthful would-be murderer, as the papers had previously described them.
At least there were no references to the case in either Wednesday's or Thursday's papers, and Sally's heart was light with gratitude to David and Pop Bybee for having persuaded her to stick with the carnival. It was rather fun to be on exhibition, reading the fortunes of the very policemen who had been given her description and orders to "get" her--much more fun than fleeing along state roads at night and hiding in cornfields by day, hungry, exhausted, afraid of her shadow and of the more menacing shadow of the state reformatory.
"Hel-lo! Hel-lo! Bless my soul! What have we here? A real live Turkish harem beauty, as I live!"
Sally aroused herself from her apparently absorbing gazing into the "magic crystal" and looked with wide, startled eyes at the man who had addressed her in an accent which at once marked him as an easterner of culture. She had seen pictures of men dressed like that, but had never quite believed in their authenticity.
But her eyes did not linger long on his slim, elegant, immaculate figure, leaning lightly on a cane. His laughing, wise, cynical eyes challenged her and invited her to share his amusement with him. But in their bold black depths was something else....
"Quite delicious, really!" the man with the cultured, eastern accent drawled, leaning more nonchalantly on his cane and twinkling his too wise, too bold black eyes at "Princess Lalla."
"But really now, I wouldn't say you're a freak, your highness. In fact, you're quite the most delicious little morsel I've seen since I left New York. If I were a Ziegfeld scout I assure you I'd be burbling your praises in a ruinously verbose telegram, and the devil take the expense. Would you mind lifting that scrap of black lace that is tantalizing me most provokingly? I am tormented with the hope that your big eyes are really the purple pansies they appear to be through your veil.