Mary Hastings Bradley

“ There was a moon. It shone soft and bright upon them, making a world of enchantment. The long lines of the mountains melted together like a violet cloud and above them a round top floated, pale and dreamy, as the dome of Saint Peter's at twilight.
From the terrace stretched a grassy path where other couples were strolling and Johnny Byrd guided her past them. They walked in silence. He kept his hand on her arm and from time to time glanced about at her in a half-constraint that was no part of his usual air.
At a curve of the path the girl drew definitely back. ”

“ In Jinny's ears was the rush of the furies' wings. But on Jinny's lips was a proud little smile, and her bright look was a shining shield for the wounds of the spirit.
"That is a comfort," she said with pleasant, friendly warmth. "You don't know how horridly responsible I felt! Really, Jack ought to have let me know—but that's Jack all over. He's never grown up."
"He's not had much time," returned McLean from the height of his twenty-nine years.
"He never will," said Jinny sagely, "not until—well, not until he meets some girl, you know, who will make him feel really responsible." ”

“ The little Viennese stared hard at her, and a sudden crinkle of amusement darted across the bright shallows of her eyes. "Come, love is not so bad," she said, "and Hamdi can be charming." Then as she saw a shudder run through the young girl before her, "Oh, if you do not fancy him!" she cried airily, yet with a keen look.
But Arlee's two hands sought and covered up the scarlet shame in her face. She did not cry; she felt that every tear in her was dried in that bitter flame. Her whole body seemed on fire, burning with fury and revulsion and that awful sense of humiliation. ”

“ Her glance about the room returned to him with mock plaintiveness. She shook her head as they spun lightly about a corner.
"Perhaps, monsieur, I have an unfortunate nose."
"My nerves are strong."
"But why afflict them?" Prankishly her eyes sparkled up at him over the black veil that made her a mystery. "Enjoy the present, monsieur!"
"Are you enjoying it?"
Her lashes dropped, like black butterflies. She was a changeling of a girl, veering from gayety to shyness.... Her gaze was now on her wrist watch, a slender blaze of platinum and diamonds. ”

“ Kerissen seemed to think that went very well, too, for his flashing teeth acknowledged his pleasure in her aptness; then his smile faded and she felt him studying her over his cigarette, studying her averted gaze, the bright color in her cheeks, the curves of her lips, and he was puzzled and perturbed by the sweet, baffling beauty of her. A wild elation began to swell his heart. His eyes glowed, his blood burned with the triumph, not so much of his daring capture of her, but of the flattering tribute that her pretty ways were paying toward his personality alone. ”

“ Barry Elder looked startled at that earnest little whisper and his eyes met hers unguarded a full minute, then a whimsical smile touched his lips to softness.
"I'm afraid you have a tender heart, Maria Angelina Santonini," he said. "You want all the world to have nice wholesome cake, beautifully frosted—don't you?"
Her gravity refused his banter. "Not all the world. Only those for whom realities matter. Only those—those like you, Signor—who could feel pain and disillusionment."
"In God's green earth, what do you know of disillusionment, child?" ”

“ She tried to beat down her fear, to think quickly, to rally her force, but her swimming senses were still invaded with the surprise of those last moments at the gate, her heart still beating with the touch of Ryder's arms about her ... of that long, deep look ... that kiss, beyond all else, that kiss....
Little rivers of fire were running through her veins. Shame and proud anger set up their swift reactions. Oh, what wings of wild, incredible folly had brought her to this! To be kissed like—like a dancing girl—by a man, an unknown, an American! ”

“ It was a jolly high place to see the moon rise, and to see all Karnak, and all Luxor, with its high Moslem minaret towering over its crumbling columns, and to see the dark and distant country with its tiny hamlets crouching under humbler mosques and lonely palms, and on the other side the wide and winding Nile with the shadowy cliffs of Thebes beyond. It gave Arlee the dizzying sensation of being suspended between heaven and earth, so high was she above those far-reaching plains, so high above the giant columns beneath her, the vast beamed roofs, the pointing obelisks. ”

“ She was white—that was the skin from Mamma—and now she wondered if it were truly a charm. Certainly Lucia preferred her own olive tints.
And her eyes were so big and dark, like caverns in her face, and her lips were mere scarlet threads. The beauties she had seen were warm-colored, high-bosomed, full-lipped.
Her distrust extended even to her coronet of black braids.
Her uncertain youth had no vision of the purity and pride of that braid-bound head, of the brilliance of the dark eyes against the satin skin, of the troubling glamour of the red little [Pg 10] mouth. ”

“ The horse' hoofs, trotting, trotting, the motion of the wheels, seemed to be the onbearing rush of fate itself. If she could only stop it! If she could only cry out, tear open the windows, scream to the passers by. She knew these were only the impotent visions of hysteria, but she indulged them pitifully.
She saw herself, in those moments, helpless, and hopeless, passing on into the slavery of this marriage—Aimée, no longer the daughter of Tewfick Pasha, but Aimée Delcassé, child of a dead Frenchman, inheritor of freedom, sold like any dancing girl.... ”

“ Miss Falconer turned the lorgnette upon him. "Oh, really," she said vaguely. "I fancy I've heard something of that—you're quite new and radical, aren't you?"
"Oh, we're old," he said gently, "very, very old. We have returned to Nature—but not the nature of mere academicians. We paint, not the world of the camera, but the world of the brain. We paint, not the thing you think you see, but the way you think you see it—its vibrations of your inner mentality. To paint the apple ripening on the bough one should reproduce the gentle swelling of the maturing fruit in your perception.... ”

“ For half an hour that separation endured—a half hour in which Cousin Jane told Maria Angelina all about her first mountain climb, when a girl, and the storm that had driven herself and her sister and her father and the guide to sleep in the only shelter, and of the guide's snores that were louder than the thunder—and Maria Angelina laughed somehow in the right places without taking in a word, for all the time apprehension was tightening, tightening like a violin string about to snap. ”

“ It was not in her world, each young Turkish girl said in those days, that one could find love.
But it was not her world! It was an alien world, enforced, imprisoning.... That was the bitterest gall of all the deadly cup.
"There is no need for haste," he was assuring her. "In a moment I will call your woman. Fatima, her name is, an old slave of our house."
"I could wish," said Aimée, "that I had been permitted to bring my old nurse, Miriam, without whom I feel strange—"
"No old nurses—I know their wiles," laughed the bey, setting down his drained cup with a wavering hand. ”

“ Behind him a tall figure appeared through the thickening smoke. She saw a face she knew; a voice she knew cried out her name:
"Arlee!"
"Oh, here!" she cried and flung herself toward him.
"Not unless you want another?" said Billy B. Hill to the Captain, turning his gun suggestively.
One tense instant the three faced each other in that flaming room, then with a sound of impotent fury, Kerissen turned and darted out the door. But as Billy turned to follow, his hand on Arlee's, there was a sound of sliding bolts.
"Burn, burn, then! Burn together!" called a hoarse voice through the wood. ”

“ She slept like a tired baby; while the light grew brighter and higher, and reached in over the shining dressing table, over the white piano, to rest upon the oblivious face upon the couch and to play with the bright, tangled hair.
The first knocking upon the door did not disturb that sleep, and it was a long time before the knock was again sounded. Then Arlee heard and sprang to her feet in a lightning rush of consciousness. It was Mariayah again, and the water jars which already looked familiar to her, and after the water jars appeared more roses and with the roses a letter. ”

“ Aimée slipped through another door, into the twilight of her bedroom, whose windows upon the street were darkened by those fine-wrought screens of wood. Swiftly she thrust the box from sight, into the hollow in the mashrubiyeh made in old days to hold a water bottle where it could be cooled by breezes from the street.
Leaning against the woodwork, her fingers curving through the tiny openings, she stared toward the west. The sky was flushing. Broken by the circles, the squares, the minute interstices of the mashrubiyeh, she saw the city taking on the hues of sunset. ”

“ Pressing her face against the grill, Arlee found she was looking down into a long and spacious hall, lined with delicate columns bearing beautiful, pointed arches, and brilliant with old gilding and inlay.
This was the colonnade which she had seen forming one side of the court; it was the hall of banquets, she was told, and connected this wing of the palace, the haremlik, with the selamlik, the men's wing, across the way. Here in old times the lord of the palace gave his feasts, and this nook had been built for some favorite to view the revels. ”

“ Deeper and deeper grew the girl's dismay. It was a different world from that bright, modern Cairo that she knew; this was as remote from her daily life as the old streets of Al Raschid. Her thoughts flew forward to that unknown lord, that Hamdi Bey, whose image she had refused to assemble to her consciousness. Now she comforted her terror with a sudden assumption of age and dignity and kindness, of a courtesy that would protect her and a deference that would assuage the horror of a life together, when unknown, fearful familiarities would alone vibrate in the empty monotonies. ”

“ He bent his head to hear her through the veil.
A tormenting curiosity was assailing him. It had become not enough to know that she was young and slender, with enchanting eyes and a teasing spirit of wit.... Vaguely he had thought her to be French, one of the quaint jeunes filles so rarely taken traveling.
But who was she? A child at her first ball? But what in the world was she doing, back in the palms, away from her chaperon?
He realized, even in the cloud of his fascination, that French jeunes filles are not wonted to lurk about palms at a ball. ”

“ She would live like a little princess. His love and his wealth were at her feet. Other women were eager for him, but he was hers alone. She would adore Egypt, the Egypt that he would reveal to her, and when she wearied they would go to the Continent and live always as she desired. Only she must be kind to him, be kind and sweet and lift her eyes and tell him that she would make him happy. She must not keep him waiting. He was not a man with whom one amused oneself.
"And I am not a girl whom one commands!" she gave back with a flash of spirit and a childish toss of her head. ”

“ But he dared not risk the scratch, for now he caught the thud of footfalls overhead, heavy footfalls, and there might be stairs unexpectedly close at hand.
He turned to Aimée but the girl shook her head helplessly and hesitant and dashed, for all their young confidence, they wavered a moment hand in hand in the dark, fearful of what a rash move might bring upon them. And in the beating stillness Ryder became conscious that the muffled, monotonous stamping of a horse is a gloomy, disheartening thing in the night, and that footsteps overhead are of all noises the most nervous and unsettling. ”

“ Slowly the two recrossed the hall, talking together in low gutturals and not apparently of unpleasant things, for a note of laughter sounded. They lingered in parley in the court, but by the time that he thought that he could not hang on a minute longer and would drop like a peach from the wall, they separated and each moved slowly away. The man with the lantern shut the door after him and all was darkness there and the great Nubian was blotted out beneath the arches of the vestibule.
The fear that Falconer was in the palace alone made Billy desperate. ”

“ Youth was buried in his masonry—and helpless in its shuttered room. Power was master—power, craft, subtlety.
But his elation ebbed as he crossed again that long drawing room with its faded flowers about the marriage throne, and its abandoned table with its cloth askew, its crystal disarrayed, its candles gutted and spent.
The memory of that insolent moment when a man's hand had gripped him, had whirled him from Aimée—when a man's voice and gun had threatened him—that memory was too overpowering for even his triumph over the invader to lay wholly its smart of outrage. ”

“ In one circle of yellow light two bearded Sheiks were playing dominoes with imperturbable gravity; the other lamp flickered over an empty table beneath which the thin, flea-bitten legs of a ragged urchin were showing in the oblivion of his tired sleep. In the shadow beyond sat a young American with a keen, impatient face, and a one-eyed Arab shrouded in a huge burnous.
"I make fine dragoman?" the Arab was saying proudly. "This is ver' old coffee-house. Many things happen here, ver' strange——"
"Yes, but I'm sick of the doggone place," said Billy fiercely. ”

“ Upon Ryder's helpless body a cold sweat of incredulous horror broke softly out.
At his feet he heard the black beginning to fit his bricks and smooth his mortar.
"You do well to save your breath," said Hamdi Bey at last, as Ryder still stood silent. "You will need it in this chamber I am providing.... But it may be," he said thoughtfully, "that your breath will last your need. Thirst may be the more impatient for her victim; they tell me thirst is an obtrusive visitor. As you were, this evening.... Still, why do you not cry out a little? It will amuse my black." ”

“ And just as each man is smitten with madness after the manner of his kind, so Burroughs, the taciturn, was struck into amazing volubility. As they sat about a cracker box of a table at an early supper, he became a perfect fount of information, pouring out to this girl an account of his diggings that would have astounded any of his intimates, and would surely have amazed Billy B. Hill if that young man had been in a condition to notice his friend's performances. But he was wrapped in a personal gloom that had descended on him like a cloud of unreason. The escapade was nearly over. ”

“ The cold, biting fury of his voice steadied her. She saw his face was distorted, livid with anger. His breathing was stertorous.
She stood helplessly by the table; the general turned and looked down upon the face of the man who had dared to violate the sanctity of his harem and attempt to steal his bride; beyond the man's head Yussuf, the black, was squatting with a grinning, dog-like watchfulness.
But Ryder did not require watching. That sash had been tied strongly about his hands and feet. He was as helpless as a baby. ”

“ The blue of the skies is in your eyes, and the gold of the sun in your hair. You have a beauty that is too bright to be endured—it burns a man's heart like a flame.... It was never meant to shine in a common field. It must be guarded, revered, adored—a princess upon a height——"
"You have an Oriental imagination," said Arlee Beecher, and prayed God her voice did not tremble. ”

“ He sent a message to the deserted Thatcher, faking errands in Cairo, and he took a room at the hotel where Jinny Jeffries—now up the Nile—had stayed. He spent a great deal of time evenings in the hotel garden, staring over the brick walls to the tops of distant palms beyond, and not infrequently he slipped out the garden's back door and wandered up and down the dark canyon of a lane.
He might as well have walked up and down the veranda of Shepheard's Hotel.
And yet the girl had her key. She could get away if she wanted to and she might want to if she knew the truth. ”

“ His smile was not quite pleasant.
"You cannot blame them for feeling a real—interest," said Arlee hesitantly.
"Their interest—pah!" he flung back excitably and made a violent gesture with his cigarette. "They peer at the bride with their haggard eyes, and they say, 'What! You have not seen your husband till to-day! How strange—how strange! Has he not written to you? Suppose you do not like him,' and they laugh and add, 'Fancy a girl among us being married like that!'... The imbeciles—whose own marriages are abominations!" ”

“ Do you not know you have an enchantment which distills in the blood and changes it to wine? You are the Rose of Life, the Rose of Desire, and no man can look upon you without longing. But you must not be angry at me for that, for I am your slave, and would strew roses always to soften the world for your little feet.... Fortune has made you my guest. Will you not smile upon me while Fortune smiles? Luncheon will be in the garden, for it is cool and fresh today.
The mask was slipping. Only a flimsy veil of sentiment now over his rash will. Only a light pretense of her freedom, of his courtesy. ”

“ As the last strains died, they paused for an instant as if the spell still bound them, then his arms fell slowly away, and he heard the girl draw a quick, startled breath. Her eyes sped to that tiny, blazing watch; when she lifted them he thought he surprised a gleam of panic.
"How fast is an hour!" she said with an excited little laugh. "Time is a—a very sudden thing!"
Sudden, indeed! How long since he had been a badly bored, impatient young man, mocking the follies of the masquerade? How long since he had danced with Jinny, flouting her notion of this sort of thing as life? ”

“ Down the street, on a black horse that arched his curving neck and danced on light, fleet feet, rode a man in a uniform of green and gold. He sat erect, his clear-cut profile toward her. The next instant his horse, side-stepping at a blowing paper, turned his face into view. It was Captain Kerissen.
Some one was stirring in the anteroom, and Arlee darted to the left of the throne-chair and through the door there which stood ajar. She was in a dim salon, like the one that she had left, but smaller, and across from her was another door. ”

“ For a moment Ryder felt wildly that he might meet the fate of the rash youth in his patron story. He had never ridden a horse like this, which, like all high-mettled Arabs, resented the authority of any but his master, and though a good horseman Ryder had all he could do to keep his seat and Aimée in his arms.
Around the corner of the lane the horse went racing, and down the dark, lebbek-lined avenue his flying feet struck back their sparks of fire. Across an open square he plunged, while irate camels screamed at him and a harsh voice shouted back loud curses. ”

“ To me your sister Americans are like big, bright flowers which grow by the wayside where every wind blows hard upon them. And each receives the dust of the footsteps of many men till comes the one who shall possess her. But he does not bear her away. He puts his name upon her, but leaves her out in the same field where every passerby may look and handle——"
"You are dreadfully rude," said Arlee clearly. "You don't understand at all. I thought you knew better."
"Ah, I know! Was I not in England and did I not hear men talk—yes, of sisters and wives with bold words and laughter? ”

“ And then the spectacle changed, the black street mantles appeared, yashmaks and tcharchafs, for now the doors were opened to all the feminine world, and there came strange, unknown women, slipping out from their grills for this pleasuring in a palace, old-timers often, draped and turbaned in the fashion of some far province of their youth; women, incredibly fat, in rich stuffs of Asia, their bright, deep-sunken eyes spying delightedly upon the scene, or furtive, poor women, keeping courage in twos and threes. ”

“ And then the man and woman go away together into a public hotel or a train, and the people laugh and shout after them, and hurl shoes and rice, with a great din of noise. I have heard!" He stopped, looked a moment at the flushed curve of Arlee's averted face, the droop of her shadowy lashes which veiled the confusion and anger of her spirit, and then, leaning forward, his eyes still upon her, he spoke in a lower, softer tone, caressing in its inflections.
"With us it is not so," he said. "We have dignity in our rejoicing, and delicacy in our love. ”

“ The general was below and begged to be announced to madame.
"We fly!" whispered a lingerer with nervous laughter, and hastily the young people hurried into their tcharchafs and veils, murmuring among themselves, with sidelong glances at that white figure whose cold hand and cheek they had just touched, hastily they sped, like light-footed nymphs in some witches' robes, down the long room, while Madame de Coulevain drew back a strand of the girl's dark hair and murmured, "But smile, my dear," to the still figure and escaped with the guests. ”