THE UNINVITED GUEST
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.
"_Is_ it 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 were _never_ coming! What _were_ you 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."
"But _why_? 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 show _me_ her 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 simply
_exquisite_.... 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--she
_submits_ to 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
would _do_, 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. And _don'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 were _both_ sorry....
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.