Jill, very fair indeed to look upon, and with seven-and-sixpence in odd
money in her bag, stepped out bravely on to the road, scorched by the
midday sun, with a curl at the corner of her mouth, a medley of
disconnected thoughts in her madcap head, and a feeling of unromantic
emptiness somewhere in the vicinity of her white leather waist belt.
A wisp of a boy, clad in very dirty garments, shrilled the equivalent
of "Carry your bag, miss," in the Egyptian tongue, calling down the
displeasure of Allah upon the foreign woman when she shook her head,
and changed the heavy dressing-case to the other hand.
Ismailiah is no place for a beautiful English girl to wander in
unchaperoned, especially when out of respect to the slenderness of her
purse she gets off the beaten track in search of a cheap restaurant.
Indeed Jill was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable at the way the
natives stared and even turned to look after her as she plodded on, so
that it was with a feeling of relief that she espied "Cuisine
Francaise" written across the window of a fairly clean-looking
restaurant in a small street, into which place she turned, to be
confronted by a fat, oily individual hailing from the Levant, who
looked as though his business was anything but that of the kitchen.
Unsophisticated Jill, however, saw nothing wrong in the person who
bowed, and smiled, and rubbed the palms of his hands in a rotary
movement; and being taken up in trying to amalgamate the scantiness of
her money, the prices on the carte, and the enormity of her hunger,
neither did she notice the burning eyes in the handsome, sensual dark
face of a middle-aged native fixed upon her hungrily from behind a
half-open door, where he had been hurriedly summoned by the man who
advertised his skill in "_la cuisine Francaise_."
To pass away the time Jill lingered over her meal until she was alone
in the place save for the waiter, who was aching to get away to smoke a
cigarette, and the native who had noiselessly entered and slipped into
a seat in the far corner.
Once Jill, inadvertently looking straight into his eyes, and hurriedly
looking away, had picked up a paper lying on the chair beside her;
glanced at the first page, and dropped it like a hot plate, whilst a
wave of scorching red rushed over her neck and face.
"Allah!" she thought, "what an awful place, and what on earth am I to
do with two shillings in my pocket, and not a cinema handy!" And
feeling the native's eyes still fixed on her, she beckoned to the
waiter, paid her bill, and once out in the street turned sharply up the
first on the right just as the native and the Levantine came to the
restaurant door in time to see the last inch of her disappearing skirt.
And yet through all her haste and her annoyance the inner membrane of
Jill's mind, that delicate fabric woven of intuition and divination,
which gives women the pull on so many occasions, and on certain courses
get her past the post lengths ahead of man, whispered to her that it
had not failed her earlier in the day, and that if she could but stick
out the next few hours she would find a sure reward for her present
distress.
But she stopped short and clicked her teeth angrily when she met the
native of the restaurant face to face in a narrow street, and turned
and walked in the opposite direction as quickly as her dignity would
allow.
But after the same thing had happened three times, and that it had
suddenly struck her that she was being headed in the direction of a
quarter where unveiled women peered from windows with great eyes made
larger by the rims of kohl smeared on the lid, and the cheeks rendered
dead white with the powder that proves so strangely attractive to the
eastern prostitute, she suddenly made up her mind to get herself out of
the danger and difficulty. She was utterly lost, and walking at a pace
that was almost a run, turned into the street she found nearest.
Not one open door did she see; at least, not one that was not congested
with women sitting smoking or eating sticky sweetmeats, or drying their
heads plastered in the henna clay which would eventually dye their hair
the red favoured of man.
She was wellnigh breathless and wondering for how long she could
continue when the man suddenly appeared at the top of the street into
which she had just turned, and seeing her salaamed deeply.
Back she twisted like a hunted hare and raced up the street through
which she had just passed.
It was empty, but on her left standing ajar was a door painted bright
blue.