In Tewfick Pasha's harem everything was astir.
It was the morning of the marriage, almost the very hour when the wedding cortège would bear the bride from her father's home to the house of her husband.
The invited guests were already arrived and streaming through the reception rooms, a bright, feminine tide in evening toilettes, surrounding the exhibited gifts or pausing about tables of cool syrups, and their soft, low voices, the delicious musical tones of highbred Turkish women, rose like a murmuring of somnolent bees to the tenser regions about, tightening the excitement of haste.
The bride was not yet ready. Still and white, she was the only image of calm in that fluttering, confusing room. Her nearer friends were hovering about her, and her maids of honor, two charming little Turks in rose robes, were draping her veil while old Miriam, resplendent in green and silver, endeavored jealously to outmaneuver them.
On her knees, the gnome-like Mrs. Hendricks was adding an orange blossom to the laces on the train. Then she sat back on her heels, her head a-tilt like a curious bird's, her eyes beaming sentimentally upon the bride.
"The prettiest h'I h'ever did see," she pronounced with satisfaction, "H'as pretty as a wax figger now—h'only a thoughttoowaxy."
And like a wax figure indeed, immobile, rigid, the bride was standing before them, arrayed at last in the shimmering white of the sweeping satin, overrich of lace and orange flowers, and shrouded in the clouding waves of her veil. White as her robes, pale as death and as still, the girl looked out at them, and only that sick pallor of her face and the glitter of her dark eyes betrayed the tumult within.
"Your diadem, my dear—you are keeping us attending," came Madame de Coulevain's voice from the door.
The diadem, that heavy circlet of brilliants which crowned the Eastern bride in place of the orange wreath of Western convention, must not be touched by the bride's fingers but placed by one of her friends, married and married but once, and exceptionally happy in that marriage.
Ghul-al-Din, Aimée's selection from her friends, stepped hastily forward now, a soft, dimpled, slow-smiling girl, her eyes drowsy with domesticity. No question of Ghul-al-Din's happiness! She extolled her husband, a young captain of cavalry, and she adored her infant son, a prodigy among children. Life for her was a rosy, unquestioning absorption.
A shaft of irony sped through Aimée, as she bent her head for its crowning at this young wife's hands, and received the ceremonial wishes for her crowning of happiness, a crowning occurring but once in her lifetime. Irony was the only salvation for the hour; without that outlet for her tortured spirit she felt she would grow suddenly mad, hysterical and babbling or passionate and wild.
So many moods had stormed through her since that night when she had found all hope of rescue gone with her lost key! So many impulses seethed frantically now beneath her quiet, as she faced for the last time that white-misted image in the glass. She had a furious longing to tear off that diadem and veil and heavy robe, to scatter the ornaments and drive out all those maddening spectators, all those interested, eager, unknowing, uncaring spectators of her humiliation.
Arranging her veil, draping her satins, as if gauze and silk were all that mattered to this hour! Wishing her happiness—as if happiness could ever be hers now for the wishing! Smiling, fluttering, complimenting, lending to the ghastly sacrifice the familiar acceptances of every day....
If only she could wake from this nightmare and find that it was all a dream. If only she could brush this confusion from her senses and from her heart its dumb terrors.... If only she had the courage for some desperate revolt, some outburst of strength—
"I am ready," she said faintly, turning from the glass, and moved towards the door, while a young eunuch bent for her train, that train of three yards length, which stretched so regally behind her in her slow descent of the stairs.
In the French drawing-room below her father was waiting for the ceremonial farewell, in which the father received the daughter's thanks for all his care of her.
Mechanically Aimée advanced. She stood before him, she lifted her eyes—and there passed from them a look of such strange, breathless, questioning intensity that it was like something palpable.... She had not foreseen this, sudden crisping of her nerves, this defiant passion of her spirit....
Her father? Was he her father? Was it a father who had sold her so, careless, callous—or was it only a father's semblance, and did there lie in the background of those petted, childish years some darker shadow, of a tragedy that had wrecked her mother's life and broken her heart—?
Like flashing light that look passed between them. It penetrated Tewfick's nonchalant guard and brought the unaccustomed color to his olive cheeks. His handsome eyes turned uneasily aside. A girl's pique perhaps, at the situation, her last defiance of his power,—but for all his reassurance there was something deeper in that look, something tenable, accusing, which went into his soul.
It was a moment in which the last cord of their relationship was severed forever.
She did not speak a word. She bent, not to kiss his hand as custom dictated, but to sweep a long, slow courtesy, that salutation of a maid of spirit to a conqueror, a bending of the pliant back, but with the head held high and the spirit unsurrendered.
And yet there was wretchedness in those proud eyes and a blind fear and supplication.
Useless to beg now. She knew it, and yet the eyes implored.
And then she smiled. And before that smile Tewfick faltered in his paternal benediction and hastened the phrases.
Little murmurs flew back and forth as she turned away, and then a hasty chatter sprang up as the guests hurried into their tcharchafs for the journey to the bridegroom's house.
That day Aimée did not put on her veil. On either side of her, as she went out her father's gate, huge negroes held up silken walls of damask, and between those walls she walked into the carriage that awaited her, followed by Madame de Coulevain and the two little maids of honor.
It was when the carriage began to move that the panic inside of her grew to whirlwind. 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....
And her own lips had assented. In the supreme, silly uselessness of sacrifice she had given herself for the safety of that man who had spent such careless indulgence upon her ... that man whom perhaps her mother had loved and perhaps had hated....
Faster and faster the horses were trotting, leading the long file of carriages and impatient motors that bore the relatives and guests and trousseau, rolling on under the lebbeks and sycamores of the wide Shubra Avenue, once the delight of fashionables before the Gezireh Drive had drained it of its throngs and its prestige.
Now some bright-eyed urchins ran out from their games in the dust to curious attention, and through a half open gate Aimée caught once a glimpse of a young, unveiled girl watching eagerly from the tangled greens and ruined statuary of an old garden. Farther on came glimpses of farm lands, the wheat rising in bright spears, and of well-wooded heights and in the distance the white houses of Demerdache against the Gibel Achmar beyond.
But where were they bearing her? Aimée had a despairing sense of distance and desolation as the carriage turned again—Abdullah, the coachman, having traversed unnecessary miles to gratify his pride before the house of his parents—and made a zigzag way towards the river, where old palaces rose from the backwaters, their faces hidden by high walls or covered with heavy vines and moss.
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.
Before a high wall the carriage had stopped. A huge, repellent Ethiopian was standing before an opened doorway, through which a rich carpet was spread.
"Ah, but he looks like an ogre, that new eunuch of yours, Aimée," murmured one of the little Turks. The other, more touched with thought, gave her a disturbed glance, and laughed in nervousness.
Madame, alone serene, ignored the dismaying impression.
"The palace is of a fine, ancient beauty, I am told," she mentioned cheerfully.
For one wild instant Aimée thought to plead with her, to implore her to tell Abdullah to drive on, to give her the freedom of flight, if only flight down those deserted streets. And then a mad vision of herself in her bridal robes in flight, brought the hysterical laughter to her throat. The time for flight had gone by ... And as for madame's pity on her—this was not the first time that Aimée had thought of invoking her aid, but she had always known, too well, that thought's supreme futility.
Sympathetic as Madame de Coulevain might be in her inmost heart—and Aimée divined in her an understanding pity for the necessities of existence—never would that sympathy betray her to rashness. She never would believe that in serving Aimée she would not be ruining her; and even if assured of Aimée's safety, she could never be brought to betray her own reputation for truthworthiness among the harems of Cairo.... As well appeal to the rocks of the Mokattam hills.
The carriage stopped. The negroes extended the damask walls, and one sprang to open the carriage door and bear the bride's train. In one moment's parting of the silken walls the girl saw a sun-flooded cluster of staring faces, thronging for her arrival, and then the damask intervened and through its lane, followed by her duenna and her maids of honor, she entered the arched doorway.
She was in a garden, a great gloomy place, over-spread with ancient, moss-encrusted trees. A broken, marble fountain flung up waters into which no sunlight flashed, and the heavy stepping stones, leading to it, were buried in untrodden grass. A garden in which no one lingered.
The Ethiopian was marshaling them to the left, to an entrance in the dark palace walls before them. Behind them the oncoming guests were streaming out in veiled procession.
He opened a door. Ancient, beautiful arches framed a long vestibule and against a background of profuse cut flowers a man's figure stepped forward in the glittering uniform of the Sultan's guard. Aimée had a confused impression of a thin, meager, dandified figure with a waspish waist ... of a blond mustache with upstanding ends ... of sallow cheek-bones and small, light eyes smiling at her in a strained, eager curiosity....
Through all her sinking dismay she had a flash of clear, enlightening irony at that look's suspense. If she were not as represented! If his cousin's fervor had misled his hope—!
But in that instant's encounter his eyes cleared to triumph and gayety, and he smiled—a smile curiously feline, ironic, for all its intended ingratiation—a conqueror's smile, winged to reassure and melt.
He stepped forward. There were formal words of welcome to which she returned a speechless bow, and then he offered his arm and conducted her slowly up the stairs, his sword rattling in its scabbard, to the apartment which was to be her home, and the prison for the spirit and the body.
She knew in a moment that she hated this man and that he inspired her with fear and horror.
Across a long expanse of drawing-room he conducted her to the ancient marriage throne upon its platform, surmounted by a pompous crown from which old, embroidered silks hung heavily.
Then with an unheard phrase, and another bow, he left her to the day-long ordeal of the reception while he withdrew to his own entertainment at her father's house. She would not see him again until night, when he would pay her a call of ceremony.
She saw his figure hesitating a moment, as he faced the oncoming guests, such a flood of femininity, unmantled now and unveiled, sparkling in rainbow hues of silks and tulle and gauze that he had never before faced and never would again. Like a bright wave the throng closed about him and then surged on towards the bride upon the throne.
How often, in the last years, Aimée had pitied that poor puppet of a bride, stuck there like some impaled, winged creature, helpless for flight, to the exhibition of the long stream of passersby! How often she had promised herself that never would this be her fate, never would she be given to an unknown! And now—
She was smiling as she faced them, that light, fixed smile she had seen so often on others' lips, the smile of pride trying desperately to hide its wounds from the penetrating glances of the curious. Satiric, cynical, or sympathetic, that light smile defied them all, but beneath its guard she felt she was slowly bleeding to death of some mortal hurt.
The sympathy unconsciously betrayed, was hardest. The whispers of her young maids of honor, "Really, Aimée, he looks so young! One would never surmise," were more galling in their intended consolation, more revealing in their betrayal of her friends' own shrinking from that arrogant, dandified old man than the barbed dart of the uncaring, inquisitive, "How do you find him, my dear? He has the reputation for conquest!"
They were all there, her friends, young, slim, modish Turkish girls whose time had not yet come, glancing quizzically about the ancient drawing room, with its solid side of mashrubiyeh, its old wall panelings of carvings and rare inlay, and then pointing their glances back at her, as if to ask, "And is this our revoltée? Is this her end, in this dim, old palace among the ghosts of the past?"
Some, the frankest, murmured, "But why did you not refuse?" and others attempted consolation with a light, "As well the first as the last—since we must all come to it."
Of the married women there were those who raised blank, bitter eyes to her, and others, more mild, romantic, affectionate, tried to infuse encouragement into their smiles as if they said, "Come—courage—it's not so bad. And what would you? We are women, after all; we do not need so much for happiness.
"Those dreams of yours for love, for a spirit to delight in your spirit in place of a master delighting in your beauty alone, what are they, those dreams, but the childish stuff of fancies? For other races, perhaps—but for you, take hold of life. There are realities yet in it to bring you joy."
It was all in their eyes, their voices, their intonations, their pressure of her hands.
And she stood there among them all, smiling always that smile demanded of the bride, looking unseeingly into their eyes, listening unhearingly to the sea of voices breaking on her ears, responding in vague monosyllables and a wider smile, while all the time her eyes saw only that face, that smirking, cynical old face, and the tide of terror rose higher and higher in her soul.
Never had she given way to her fear, never since the black night when she found the key was gone.
Then, after frenzied searching in impossible places she had stolen back to her room and buried her face in her pillow to stifle the breaking sobs of rebellion and despair—and of a longing so deep and so terrible that it seemed to rend her with a physical anguish, a pain so fiery that her heart would forever bear the scar.
Never again would she see him now.... Never would she know—never would she know all. She had refused his aid. And he might believe her still aloof, incredulous.... It was finished—forever and ever.
She had told herself that before. But always there had been the key. And now there was no key and no escape and her heart broke itself against the iron of necessity.
She had cried the night through. Morning had brought her exhaustion, not peace but a despairing submission. Why struggle when the prison gate is shut? And if there was never to be freedom for her ... never again the sight of that too-remembered face and the sound of that voice—why, then, as well one fate as another. And it was too late now to recede.
So she had called upon her pride and summoned her spirit to play its part to protect her from whispers, and surmise and half-contemptuous pity. She would surrender to this man because she must, and she would win his respect by her dignity and worth, but her soul she would keep its own, in its unsullied dreams ... and in its memories.... Life would be nothing but a hardship, nobly borne.
But now she had seen the man. Now this wild dislike, this sickening terror.
To be alone with him, to have only the few days grace of courtship which the Mohammadan custom imposes upon the bridegroom, to be forever at his mercy in this solitary palace, with its echoing corridors, its blackened walla, its damp breath of age....
She thought wildly of death.
And all the time she was smiling, bending her cheek to the kiss of a friend, feeling the fingers of some well-wisher press upon her, listening to praises of her beauty....
For she was beautiful. No image of wax now. The scarlet of her frightened blood was staining her cheeks, her eyes were bright as the jewels in her diadem, and beneath the thrown-back veil her dark hair revealed its lovely wealth.
"Is she not a rose—will he not adore her, our Hamdi?" she heard that stout cousin of Hamdi's say to a companion, and the two stared on appraisingly at the young girl, in her freshness and virginal youth, as if at some toy to invite the jaded appetite of a satiated master.
And still the throng filed by, a strange throng beneath the flickering light and shadow of the mashrubiyeh, slender young Turks or blonde Circassians in their Paris frocks, their eyes tormented or malicious, and here and there, like a green island of calm, some rotund matron grave and serene, her head encircled with an old fashioned turban of gauze, her stout flesh encased in heavy silks, bought at Damask so as not to enrich the Unbelievers at Lyons.
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.
Now, too, at four, came the women from the Embassies, a Russian girl with whom Aimée had played tennis in ages past, rosy now with yesterday's sun and sleepy with last night's dance, who touched the bride's hand as if it were the hand of one half-dead, already consigned to the tomb; other girls she did not know, who stared at her with the avid eyes of their young curiosities; older women, experienced, unstirred, drinking their tea and smoking cigarettes and gossiping of their own affairs, and occasionally among them a tourist agog with wonder and exultation, storing away details for a lifetime of talk, asking amiably the most incredible questions....
"And is it true you have never met your husband? Listen, Jane—she says she has never met him—"
A girl in a creamy white silk came forward a little uncertainly. She was a pretty girl, with a curve of ruddy hair visible under her smart straw, and very bright eyes, where shyness was at variance with a friendly smile.
Indeed Jinny Jeffries was extraordinarily intimidated by the occasion. She had a distinct sense of intrusion mingling with her delight at having intruded, and she murmured her good wishes in an almost inaudible tone.
"It is very good of you to let us come ... I wish you every happiness," she said.
Beside her a tall slender figure, in black tcharchaf and yashmak, made its appearance.
Aimée's eyes slipped past the pretty American; the mechanical smile was frozen on her lips. Over the black veil she saw the hazel eyes, bright with excitement, vivid as speech; the eyes of the masquerader in the Scotch costume, the eyes of the man at the garden gate—Jack Ryder's eyes ... the eyes of her dreams.
When Ryder had despatched from the jeweler's who had polished the locket for him, that package with its secret note, and its warning plaid, he had no real assurance that the message would fall into Aimée's hands. But he could think of nothing better, and he argued very favorably for his stratagem.
That miniature should have some effect, and given the miniature, and the bit of plaid cloth, Aimée's quick wit ought to divine a message.
She had always the key, he remembered, and the power of egress from her prison. And surely it ought not to be difficult for her to devise some way of getting a letter into the post.
So his hope fluctuated between the garden gate and the daily mail at the Bank, and he rather surprised McLean by the frequency and brevity of his visits, and by the duration of his stay in Cairo.
For that he had an excuse, both to McLean and to the deserted Thatcher, at the excavation camp, two excuses in fact—some belated identification work to be done at the Museum and a cracked wisdom tooth.
Chiefly he spoke of the necessity for dentistry and accounted for his moods with his molar.
Of moods he had many. Moods when he contemplated his behavior lightly and brightly or darkly, in unrelieved disgust, moods when he refused to contemplate it at all. But he stayed. That was the conspicuous and enduring thing. He stayed.
Jinny Jeffries returned from the Nile by express to find him ensconced at her hotel, and her bright confidence suffered no diminution of its self respect. And it was through Jinny that chance set another straw of circumstance dancing his way.
Jinny had a frock she wished repaired. Mrs. Heath-Brown, whom she had met upon the Nile, recommended to her a Mrs. Hendricks, wife of a British soldier and a most clever little needle woman. Jinny looked up Mrs. Hendricks and found it impossible to secure her for some days as she was busy refitting for a fashionable wedding in the Mohammedan world.
A night later, and two nights before the wedding, Jinny made a narrative of the circumstances for Jack Ryder's benefit.
"Such frocks h'as h'I 'ave to do—and the young lady no more caring!" had been a saying of the Hendricks that Jinny passed interestedly on to Jack. She had no memory of the young lady's name, but distinctly she recalled that she was young and beautiful and to marry a general.
It was enough to launch Jinny's eager interest in Mohammedan marriages and foster the wish that she might attend one. She regretted Mrs. Heath-Brown's absence and her lack of acquaintance, and suggested that Jack ought to know some one—
"Better than that,I'lltake you," said Jack with a promptness that brought a light to Miss Jeffries' eyes.
There was also a light in Jack Ryder's eyes, a swift burning of excitement and adventure.
Why not? The thing was possible. Muffled in a tcharchaf and veiled with a heavy yashmak, armed with enough Arabic for the briefest of encounters, he might dare the danger. Who in the world would discover him? Who would ever know?
The thing was unthinkable. It was a desperate desecration, comparable only, in his vague analogies, to the Mecca pilgrimage and profanation of a Holy Tomb. But its very improbability would prevent detection.
Only Jinny had to keep her mouth extremely shut—before and afterwards.
He impressed this upon her so thoroughly, as they did their shopping for the costume together the next morning, that she had compunctious moments of solicitude when she said he really ought not to.... She would feel responsible....
Thereupon he laughed, and dared her to be game, and she grew all mirthful confidence again.
But that night, sitting alone in a native café over his Turkish coffee, Ryder was grimly serious.
He knew that it was a mad thing to do. He felt, not so much the danger he ran from discovery, but the danger to his already shattered peace of mind from another glimpse of that strange girl ... that young unknown, on whom he had spent such time and thought, of late, that she seemed a very part of his existence.
What was the good of going to her wedding reception? Feebly he told himself that it was his only chance to inform her upon the history of the Delcassés. There might have been reasons for her non-appearance at the gate, for her not writing.... He could have no glimmering of what went on behind those barred windows. This was his only chance—he meant to say, to tell her—but his eager senses murmured, to see her again.
That was it—to see her again. He owned the lure, at last, with a bitter ruefulness. But—he brightened up at that—it was partly his duty to himself. Now he had all sorts of fool imaginings about this girl. He was remembering her as something lovelier than a Houri, more enchanting than fairy magic, more sweet than spring. He owed it to himself to rout these imbecile prepossessions and prove clearly and dispassionately that the girl was just a very nice little girl, a pretty bride, marrying into a very distinct life from his own—and a girl with whom he would not have an idea in common. A girl, in fact, far inferior to any American. A girl not to be compared to Jinny Jeffries.
Besides, there was fun in the thing. It tempted him tremendously. It was adventurous, romantic forbidden.
He heard the word echoed in Turkish behind him.
So engrossed in his thoughts had he been that he had been inattentive to the rhythm of old Khazib, the tale teller's voice, as he held forth, from the divan, beside his long-stemmed pipe, to his nightly audience, of men and boys, camel drivers, small merchants, desert men from the long caravans who were the frequenters of this café.
To-night there were few about the old man, and Ryder had small difficulty in drawing nearer the circle. A green-turbaned Arab, with the profile of a Washington and the naïve eyes of youth, whispered to him courteously that it was the tale of the Third Kaland, and the Prince Azib was in the palace of the forty damsels who were farewelling him, as they were to depart, according to custom, for forty days.
Khazib, with a faint salutation of his turban towards the newcomer, went slowly, sonorously on with his tale.
"We fear," said the damsel unto Azib, "lest thou contraire our charge and disobey our injunctions. Here now we commit to thee the keys of the palace which containeth forty chambers and thou mayest open of these thirty and nine, but beware (and we conjure thee by Allah and by the lives of us!) lest thou open the fortieth door, for therein is that which shall separate us forever."
For a moment the café faded from Ryder's eyes. He was in the gloom of a garden, a shadowy darkness just touched by a crescent moon, and beside him in the shrubbery a dark-shrouded form, shaking its shawled head at him in denial, and whispering, lightly but tremblingly. "It is a forbidden door ... forbidden as that fortieth.... There are thirty and nine doors in your life, monsieur, that you may open, but this is the forbidden...."
He had meant to look up that tale. And now chance was reminding him of it again. A superstitious man—Ryder's great grandfather, perhaps, would have felt it an omen of warning, and a devout man—Ryder's grandfather, perhaps—would have taken it for a sign from Heaven to divert his steps. Ryder reflected upon coincidence.
"When I saw her weeping," Khazib was intoning, and now Ryder attended, his scanty knowledge of the vernacular straining and overleaping the blanks, "Prince Azib said to himself, 'By Allah, I will never open that fortieth door, never, and in no wise!'"
"A wise bird," thought Ryder to himself, drawing on his cigarette.
"And I bade her farewell," continued the voice slipping into the first person. "Thereupon all departed, flying like birds, leaving me alone in the palace. When evening drew near, I opened the door of the first chamber and found myself in a place like one of the pleasances of Paradise. It was a garden with trees of freshest green and ripe fruits of yellow sheen. And I walked among the trees and I smelt the breath of the flowers and heard the birds sing their praise to Allah, the One, the Almighty."
"Allhamdollillah," murmured Ryder's neighbors reverently.
"And I looked upon the apple, whose hue is parcel red and parcel yellow ... and I looked upon the quince whose fragrance putteth to shame musk and ambergris ... and upon the pear whose taste surpasseth sherbet and sugar, and the apricot, whose beauty striketh the eye as she were a polished ruby....
"On the morrow I opened the second door and found myself in a spacious plain set with tall date palms and watered by a running stream whose banks were shrubbed with rose and jasmine, while privet and eglantine, oxe-eye, violet and lily, narcissus, origane and the winter gilliflower carpeted the borders; and the breath of the breeze swept over those sweet-smelling growths...."
How inadequate, Ryder realized, had been the description given by the Book of Genesis to the Garden of Eden.
"And the third door," droned on the rhythmic voice, "into an open hall, hung with cages of sandal-wood and eagle-wood; full of birds which made sweet music, such as the mocking bird, and the cusha, the merle, the turtle dove—and the Nubian ring-dove."
A trifle restively Ryder stirred. He liked birds but he wanted to be getting on to that fortieth door and this was slow progress. Not a sign of impatience marred the bright, absorbed content of the other listeners, intent now upon the wonders behind that the fourth chamber revealed, stores of "pearls and jacinths and beryls, and emeralds and corals and carbuncles and all manner of precious gems and jewels such as the tongue of man could not describe."
The story teller proceeded, "Then, quoth Prince Azib, now verily am I the monarch of the age, since by Allah's grace this enormous wealth is mine; and I have forty damsels under my hand nor is there any to claim them save myself."
The handsome Arab beside Ryder inhaled his pipe luxuriously. "By the grace of Allah!" he said reverently.
"Then I gave not over opening place after place until nine and thirty days were passed and in that time I had entered every chamber except that one whose door I was charged not to open. But my thoughts ever ran upon that forbidden fortieth and Satan urged me to open it for my own undoing...."
"I see his finish," said Ryder interestedly to himself—and he thought of the analogy.
"So I stood before the chamber, and after a few moments' hesitation, opened the door which was plated with red gold and entered. I was met by a perfume whose like I had never before smelt; and so sharp and subtle was the odor that it made my senses drunken as with strong wine, and I fell to the ground in a fainting fit which lasted a full hour. When I came to myself I strengthened my heart, and entering found myself in a chamber bespread with saffron and blazing with light.... Presently, I spied a noble steed, black as the murks of night when murkiest, standing ready saddled and bridled (and his saddle was of red gold) before two mangers one of clear crystal wherein was husked sesame, and the other, also of crystal containing water of the rose scented with musk. When I saw this I marveled and said to myself, 'Doubtless in this animal must be some wondrous mystery, and Satan—'"
"Satan the Stoned!" murmured Ryder's neighbor religiously.
"Satan cozened me, so I led him without and mounted him ... and struck him withal. When he felt the blow he neighed a neigh with a sound like deafening thunder and opening a pair of wings flew up with me in the firmament of heaven far beyond the eyesight of man. After a full hour of flight he descended and shaking me off his back lashed me on the face with his tail, and gouged out my left eye, causing it to roll along my cheek. Then he flew away."
On rolled the voice, narrating the prince's descent to the table of the other one-eyed youths, but Ryder was unheeding. And at the close he inclined his head with the other listeners, murmuring "May Allah increase thy prosperity," as he felt in his pockets for the silver which the others were drawing from turban and sleeves and sash to lay in the patriarch's lap, and then raised his head to question diffidently, "Would you interpret, O Khazib, the meaning of that door? For I hear that it hath now become a saying of a forbidden thing."
The sage hesitated, sucking at his pipe. Then he said slowly, "To every man, O Youth, is there a forbidden door, beyond which waits the steed of high adventure ... with wings beyond man's riding. And so the rider is lost and his vision is gone."
"But for him who could ride?" Ryder suggested.
"Inshallah! Who can say till he has tried his destiny—and better are the nine and thirty chambers of safe pleasance than the lonely sightlessness of the outcast one.... It is a tale which if it were written upon the eye-corners with needle-gravers, were a warning to those who would be warned."
For a moment their eyes held each other, smiling but grave. Ryder's thoughts were of the morrow, of that forbidden entry he was planning to make, of the risks, the wild uncertainties....
Wisdom and counsel looked significantly out at him out of those patriarchal eyes. Prudence and sanity clamored within him for a hearing.
And then he smiled, the whimsical, boyish smile of young adventuring.
"But whoever, O, my father, had opened that forbidden door the veriest crack, and breathed its scent and glimpsed its dazzlement—then for him there is no turning back," he confided.
He rose and Khazib's eyes followed him.
"Luck go with you, my son," he said clearly, "in Allah's name," and smiling in faint ruefulness, "May Allah heed thee!" Ryder murmured piously.
Now as he stood before Aimée, and saw her eyes widen with recognition, he knew that he would have need of all his luck and all his wit. He stepped hastily forward.
"Alhamdolillah—Glory to God that he has permitted me to behold you this day," he murmured, in the studiously sing-song Arabic that might be expected from a humble Turkish woman in plain mantle and yashmak. "May Allah continue to spread before thee the carpet of enjoyment—" and then lower, almost muffled by the thick veil, "Can you give me a moment—?"
Eagerly, significantly, his eyes met hers.
Half fearfully, Aimée flashed an excited look around her. The space before the marriage throne had thinned, for there were no more arrivals waiting to offer their congratulations and the guests were clustering now about the tables for refreshment or drifting into the next salon where behind firmly stretched silken walls a stringed orchestra was playing.
Miss Jeffries alone was lingering near, but she moved off now—at a secret look from Ryder—with an appearance of unconcern.
"I am going to try my vernacular on the bride," Ryder had told her. "Don't linger or look alarmed. I won't give the show away."
So there was no one to overhear a low-toned colloquy between the bride and the veiled woman, no one to note or wonder that the veiled woman was speaking, strangely enough, in rapid English.
"When I didn't hear from you I had to come, to know if you received the package and letter I sent—"
With a swift gesture of her little ringed hand Aimée drew from the laces on her bosom that heavy gold locket.
"Indeed I have it—and the note, too, I found. But I could not write you. There was no way—no one to trust to mail it. And they had stolen my key," she whispered, and the confessing words with their quiver of forlornness told Ryder something of the story of those helpless days and nights.
He murmured, "I didn't dare write you more personally for fear they would find the note."
"I understood. That plaid about the box—that was so clever a warning. I kept the box and hunted in it."
"I wanted to tell you more about that locket. I dug it up myself from the tomb I was excavating—do you remember how you wished that I would dig from the sands whatever secret I most desired? And I found that.... And it happened that at McLean's I had met the French agent who was searching for any trace of the Delcassés, of the wife and child of the explorer who had disappeared fifteen years before. That miniature was your image, and I guessed at once. McLean and I went to the pasha—Oh, I didn't tell him I'd met you!" he flung in, his eyes twinkling, "and we pretended we knew all about his marriage to Madame Delcassé and he owned up without a quiver. But when we tried to claim you for the French family, he doubled like a hare. He said the Delcassé child was dead, died when his own child was a baby, and that you were his own. But I was sure that you were more than fourteen, and that he was simply putting it over on us so as to have this marriage go on without interference—and so I tried to get the story to you. Even now I thought you ought to know," he added, as if in palliation of his invasion here.
For he realized now how tremendous an invasion it was.
All the guests about him had not given him that feeling, all that sea of femininity, those grave matrons whose serenely unveiled faces would burn with shame to be beheld by this stranger, those bright, slim girls in their extravagant frocks, their tulle, their lace, their pearls, their diamonds, all the hidden charms that no man had yet seen stirred in him no more than an excited and adventurous curiosity.
But the vision of Aimée—that delicate beauty in its tragic irony of throne and diadem! It touched him to tenderness and to an actual sense of sacrilege at the freedom of his gaze. No moonlight vision this, ethereal and dream-like, but a vivid, disquieting radiance of dark, shining eyes and rose-flushed cheeks. He had never seen her hair before, midnight hair, escaping little curls from the veil and the diadem. And he had never really seen her mouth—wistful and gay, like the mouth of the miniature ... nor her chin, so tender and willful ... nor her skin, satin-soft, in its veiling from the daylight....
She was more than young and sweet and fair. She was beauty, beauty with its elusive, ineluctable spell, entangled with the appeal of her helplessness.
A bright blush flooded her now and her eyes fell in confusion, before the prolonging of his look.
"But it is dangerous—your being here," she murmured.
"The fortieth door," he reminded her.
Under her breath, "Ah, you remember?"
"I remember. And but last night I heard Khazib, the story teller, tell the tale, and I thought of you and your warning—of the door that hid you, that it was forbidden for me to open."
"And so you opened it, monsieur." Faintly she smiled, with downcast lashes.
"And I came as you first came to me—in mantle and veil."
For a moment their thoughts fled back to that masquerade, which seemed so long ago.
"But it is too late," she said tremulously.
"Isit too late—for me to help you?"
At that her eyes rose to his again in a swift flash of hunted fear.
"Oh, take me away from him!" she breathed suddenly, unpremeditately. "Somehow—somewhere—"
Another figure came towards them. Madame De Coulevain in all her severe elegance of black.
"Come and join your friends at the supper, my dear; there is no need for you to be pilloried here any longer," she observed with an indifferent scrutiny of the persistent veiled woman, and Ryder moved slowly away while Aimée came dutifully down from the throne, a huge black bending to hold her train.
"I thought you werenevercoming! Whatwereyou talking about?" demanded a voice in Ryder's ear, and he found Jinny Jeffries at his side, her bright gray eyes pouncing upon him with curiosity.
"Oh, I wished her joy—native phrases—that sort of thing," he answered mechanically as they drew back into an embrasure of the mashrubiyeh that formed one side of the great room.
"But you were talking forever. I saw you holding forth at a tremendous rate. Why wouldn't you let me stay and listen—?"
"You'd have put me off my shot, I had to feel unobserved to play up."
"You must be fearfully good at Arabic," said Jinny guilelessly. "And what did she say?"
"Why—she didn't say anything in particular—"
"But what was that she was showing you? I saw her bend forward with a locket or something—?"
A plague upon Jinny's bright eyes! "Oh, yes, the locket," said Ryder with an effort. "She—ah—she showed it to me."
"Butwhy? Wasn't that awfully funny—"
"Oh, I believe it's a custom, courtesy stunt you know, to show a poor guest some of the presents," he explained, manufacturing under pressure.
"I wish she'd showmeher rings. Did you ever see so many? It was the only thing about her you'd call really Eastern—all those glittering diamonds on her fingers. And did you notice her hands?" Jinny went on enthusiastically. "Jack, I never knew there was anything so lovely as that girl in the world. She's simplyexquisite.... I suppose it's her whole life," Miss Jeffries reflected, "keeping herself beautiful." Her eyes rested curiously on the feminine groups before them. "They haven't anything else to do or think about, have they?"
"I understand some of them are remarkably educated young women."
"What's the use of it?" said the practical daughter of an American college. "They can't ever meet any men, but just a husband—"
"They can read for themselves, can't they? And talk to each other. And—well, what do you girls do with your education anyway? You don't lug anything very heavy about the golf course and the ball room."
"Who wants us to? But we do bring something to committees and clubs and—and welfare work," Miss Jeffries maintained stoutly. "And we are always into arguments at dinners. While these girls, they can't dine out, they haven't anybody but themselves to argue with, and it doesn't matter a straw politically what they think—they can't even change the customs that their great, great, great grandfathers imposed.
"If I were one of these girls," she declared positively, "I wouldn't bother about Kant and chemistry and history—I'd stuff myself full of sweetmeats and loll around on a divan and not care what happened outside. Or else I'd be miserable."
"Perhaps they are miserable."
"They ought to fight. Think,think," said Jinny dramatically, "of marrying some man you've never seen—the way that lovely girl is doing. Suppose she doesn't like him? Suppose he's dull and cranky and mean and greedy? Suppose he bores her? Suppose she actually hates him? Why, Jack, it's horrible! And yet she submits—shesubmitsto it—"
"Suppose she has to submit, that she hasn't a soul on earth to help her? How would you fight, I wonder—"
"Well, you don't need to shout about it! That woman's looking now—that one with the green turban and the stuffed-date eyes."
Nervously Jinny glanced around.
"It's a fearful lark," she murmured, "but I don't believe I'd ever have had the nerve if I'd realized.... What do you suppose they woulddo, Jack, if they found you out?... Those big blacks look so—so uncivilized."
Her eyes rested upon the huge eunuch at the far entrance of the salon, a huge hideous fellow, with red fez, baggy blouse and trousers, and a knife handle sticking piratically from a sash.
"He has on English oxfords," said Ryder lightly. "That's a saving something. But they aren't going to find out..... I have an idea we ought to make our getaway now, and that we had better not go together. You go first and then I'll stroll along, and whisk off these duds in some quiet corner.... I have to meet a man to-night, but I'll probably see you to-morrow. Anddon't," he entreated, "don't as you love your life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, breathe a word of my being here like this to any one—any time—anywhere. I was an unmitigated ass to link you up with it. So be wary."
"Oh, I shall!" Jinny Jeffries promised vividly and with a last look about the old palace, the empty marriage throne and the dissolving knots of guests, she gave a little nod to her veiled companion, sauntered without visible trepidation past the staring eunuch at the door, went down the long stairs where other departing guests were drawing on mantles and veils, and so made her way across a shadowy garden and out the gate that another black opened.
And then she drew a sudden breath of relief and glanced up at a sky of sunset fires and felt the free airs play with her hair and face and so shook off, lightly and gratefully, that darkening impression of shuttered rooms and guarding blacks.
Little rivers of wine and fire were bubbling in Aimée's veins. She was gay at supper, as a bride should be gay. It was enough, for those first few moments, that she had seen him again, that he had dared to come and try to help her—that he cared enough to come!
Her heart sang little pæans of joy and triumph. She sketched impossible scenes of escape—she saw herself, in a shrouding mantle, slipping with him past the guests at the door, she saw them speeding away in a motor, she saw France, the unknown Delcassés—a bright, gay world of freedom and romance.
Or, perhaps, if not to-night, then to-morrow.... They would plan ... she would obtain permission to take a drive and there would be a signal, a waiting car....
But, better now. She could not endure even the call of ceremony from that man who called himself her husband. The very memory of his eyes on her....
Decidedly, it must be to-night. And Ryder would think of a way. She must get back to him ... he would be lingering. She must get away from this hateful table, these guests and companions....
A wild impatience tore at her. She grew uneasy, anxious, fretted at the frightening way that time was slipping past....
Her radiance vanished, her smile was nervous, forced, as she sat at her table of honor, amid the circle of her friends, with a linked wreath of candelabra sending its sparkle of lights over the young faces and jewel-clasped throats, over the glittering silver on the white satin cloth among the drift of pink and white rose petals.
She began to bite her lips nervously... she did not hear what her bridesmaids were chattering about ... her eyes went often, with that stealth that invites regard, to the tiny platinum and diamond watch upon her wrist.
Would they never finish? Would they never be free? She wondered if she dared feign an illness to rise and leave them; but no, that would mean solicitude, companions....
And now the slaves were bringing still another round of trays....
Oh, hurry, hurry, her tightening nerves besought.
At last! The older women were going. Not even for a wedding would they deeply infringe upon that rule which keeps the Moslem women indoors after the sun has set. Ceremoniously each made to the bride her adieux and good wishes, and ceremoniously a frantically impatient Aimée returned the formal thanks due for "assistance at the humble fête."
She did not see that black mantle anywhere.
Her heart sank. Stupid, she told herself with quivering lips, to dream that he could dare to linger, that he had any way to get her out. By help he meant no more than getting letters to France for her.... And yet his eyes when they had met hers.... Surely he had meant—but when she had disappeared from the reception room to attend the supper, when there seemed no way of speaking again to her, and all the outsiders, all but the invited guests were departed, he had been, obliged to go, too.
Perhaps some one had begun to notice him.... She wondered if he had been careful about his shoes, his hands.... How had he managed about the dress anyway?
And then she remembered that girl, that pretty American with the ruddy hair to whom she had seen him talking, and she conjectured that there was feminine aid and confidence....
A wave of bitterness swept over her. He had told that girl about her—he knew that girl well enough to tell her! And perhaps he was only sorry for the poor little French girl in the Turkish harem, perhaps they werebothsorry....
Had he told that girl, she thought with bitter mutiny, that he had kissed her?
That girl must have been very sure of him not to be jealous of his interest in herself!
And now they could be somewhere together, perhaps talking her over, while she was here ... here forever....
She was so white now, so silent, so distrait, that all the chatter of the younger girls who were lingering around her could not dispel the feeling of depression. They cast covert glances of discomfort at each other, begged for more music from the orchestra, tallied with an effort of the size and spaciousness of the palace and the magnificence of the feast.
She had told herself that she had ceased to hope. She did not know how false it was until the eunuch brought his message. Then hope really died.
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.
And then Aimée was alone in the great room, deserted of its throngs, a darkening room, full of burned-down candles and fallen flower petals, with here and there the traces of the revelers, a scented handkerchief ... a fan ... a buckle from some French slipper ... or a feather from some ancient turban clasp....
Like the ghost of some deserted queen, with her regal satins and glittering circlet, she waited. There was a moment of grace in which she tried, to turn a gallant face toward the next moment.
Then he came, advancing.... It may have been her distorted fancy, but down the long perspective, that figure looked more mincing, more waspish, more unreal than ever. And she was conscious of that swift rising of dislike, of antagonism touched with reasonless fear.