From the moment when the taxicab drove away and left her in the deserted
street, Maggie was conscious of a strange sense of suppressed
excitement, something more poignant and mysterious, even, than the
circumstances of her adventure might account for. It was exciting
enough, in its way, to play the part of a marauding thief, to find
herself unexpectedly face to face with a possible solution of the great
problem of Prince Shan's intentions. But beneath all this there was
another feeling, more entirely metaphysical, which in a sense steadied
her nerves because it filled her with a strange impression that she had
lost her own identity, that she was playing somebody else's part in a
novel and thrilling drama.
The street was empty when she inserted the little key in the front door.
There was not a soul there to see her step in as it swung open and then
softly, noiselessly, but without any conscious effort of hers, closed
again behind her. She held her breath and looked around.
The hall was round, painted white and dimly lit by an overhead electric
globe. In the centre was a huge green vase filled with great branches of
some sort of blossoms. Not a picture hung upon the walls, nor was there
any hall stand, chest, closet for coats or hats, or any of the usual
furbishings of such a place. There were three rugs upon the polished
floor and nothing else except a yawning stairway and closed doors.
Whatever servants might be in attendance were evidently in a distant
part of the building. Not a sound was to be heard. Still without any
lack of courage, but oppressed with that curious sense of unreality, she
turned almost automatically towards the door on the left and opened it.
Again it closed behind her noiselessly. She realised that she was in one
of the principal reception rooms of the house, dimly lit as the hall
from a dome-shaped globe set into the ceiling. She moved a yard or two
across the threshold and stood looking about her. Here again there was
an almost singular absence of furniture. The walls were hung with
apple-green silk, richly embroidered. There were some rugs upon the
polished floor, a few quaintly carved chairs set with their backs
against the wall, and opposite to her the ebony cabinet of which La
Belle Nita had spoken. She moved towards it. Somehow or other, she found
herself with the other key in her hand, stooping down. She counted the
drawers--one, two three--fitted in the key, turned it, and realised with
a little start the presence in the drawer of a roll of parchment, tied
around with tape and sealed with a black seal. She laid her hand upon
it, but even at that moment she felt a shiver pass through her body.
There had been no sound in the room, which she could have sworn had been
empty when she entered it, yet she had now a conviction that she was not
alone. She turned slowly around, her lips parted, breathing quickly.
Standing in the middle of the room, a grim, commanding figure in his
flowing green robes, the dim light flashing upon the great diamonds in
his belt, stood Prince Shan.
To Maggie at that moment came a great throbbing in her ears, a sense of
remoteness from this terrible happening, followed by an intense and
vital consciousness of danger. The man who had brought new things into
her life, the polished gentleman of the world, with his fascinating
brain and gentle courtesy, had gone. It was Prince Shan of China who
stood there. She felt the chill of his contempt and disapproval in her
heart. She had forfeited her high estate. She was a convicted thief,--an
adventuress!
She gripped at the side of the cabinet. Her poise had gone. She had the
air of a trapped animal.
"You!" she exclaimed. "How did you get here?"
He answered her without change of expression. A sense of crisis seemed
to have made his tone more level, his face stony.
"It is my house," he said. "I do not often leave it. I sat in my
sleeping chamber behind"--he pointed to the silken curtains through
which he had passed--"I heard your entrance and guessed with pain and
regret at your mission."
"But a quarter of an hour ago you were at the ball!"
"You are mistaken," he replied. "I do not attend such gatherings. I had
given you my word that I should not be there."
"But I saw you," she persisted, "in that same costume!"
"Surely not," he dissented. "The person whom you saw was a gentleman
from my suite, who wore the dress of an inferior mandarin. He is
sometimes supposed to resemble me. I should have believed that your
apprehension of such things would have informed you that no Prince of my
line would wear the garments of his order for a public show."
Her fingers had left the drawer now. She stood upright, pale and
desperate.
"That woman of your country, then--La Belle Nita--did she lie to me?"
"How can I tell?" he answered coldly, "because I do not know what she
said."
Maggie made an effort to test her position.
"I came here as a thief," she confessed. "I am detected. What are your
intentions?"
He moved very slowly a little closer to her. Maggie felt her sense of
excitement grow.
"You came here as a thief," he repeated, "as a spy. Why did you not ask
me for the information you desired?"
"Because you would not have told me," she replied, "at least you would
not have told me the truth."
"For a price," he said, "the truth would have been yours for the asking.
For a different price it is yours now."
Again without noticeable movement he seemed to have drawn nearer. The
edge of that cool ebony cabinet seemed to be burning her fingers. Try
however hard, she could not frame the question which had risen to her
lips.
"The price," he continued, "is you--yourself. A few hours ago it was
your love I craved for. Now it is yourself."
He was so near to her now that she faced the steady radiance of his
wonderful eyes, so near that she could trace the faint lines about his
mouth, the strong, stern immobility of his perfectly shaped,
olive-tinted features.
"You are too wonderful," he went on, "to remain a daughter of the crude
West. I want to take you back with me to the land where life still moves
to poetry, to the land where one can live in a world unknown by these
struggling hordes. You shall live in a palace where the perfume of
flowers lingers always, with the sound of running water in your ears, a
palace from which all sordid things and all manner of ugliness are
banished because we alone have found the key to the garden of
happiness."
He raised his hand, and it seemed as though unseen eyes watched them
from every quarter. The silken curtains through which he had issued were
drawn back by invisible hands, and the inner apartment was disclosed.
Its faint illumination was obscured with purple shades. There was a high
lacquer bedstead, with little ivory ladders on either side, a bedstead
hung with silks of black and purple and mauve. There was a huge couch, a
shrine opposite the bed, in which was a kneeling figure of black marble.
A faint odour, as though from thousand-year-old sachets, very faint
indeed and yet with its mead of intoxication, seemed to steal out from
the room, which had borrowed from its curious hangings, its marvellous
adornments, its strangely attuned atmosphere, all the mysticism of a
fabled world.
"You have come," he said. "Will you stay?" The inertia seemed suddenly
to leave her limbs. She threw up her head as though gasping for air,
escaped, somehow or other, from the thrall of his eyes, and passed
across the smooth floor with flying footsteps. Her fingers seized the
handle of the door and turned it, only to find it held by some invisible
fastening. She shook it passionately. There was not even sound. She
turned back once more. Prince Shan had only slightly changed his
position. He stood upon the threshold of the inner room, and his arms
were outstretched in invitation.
"Am I a prisoner?" she sobbed.
"You came of your own free will," he replied. "You will stay for my
pleasure and for the joy of my being. As for these things," he went on,
moving slowly to the cabinet, picking up the pile of papers and throwing
them on one side contemptuously, "these are only one's amusements. I
pass my lighter hours with them. They interest me in the same manner as
a chess problem. We do not care, we in the mighty East, which of you
holds your head highest this side of Suez. All you western nations are
to us a peck of dust outside our palace gates. Listen, dear one. We can
leave, if you will, to-night, and top the clouds before sunrise. And I
promise you this," he went on, "when you pass from the greyness of these
sordid lands into the everlasting sunshine of the East, you will not
care any longer about these people who go about the world on all fours.
Day by day you will know what life and love mean. You will find the
cloying weight of material things pass from your brain and body, and the
joy of holy and wonderful living take their place."
Her whole being was in a turmoil. She drew nearer to the papers upon the
table. She was now within a yard of Prince Shan himself. He made no
effort to intercept her, no movement of any sort to stop her. Only his
eyes never left her face, and she felt a madness which seemed to be
choking the life out of her, a pounding of her heart against her ribs, a
strange and wonderful joy, a joy in which there was no fear, a joy of
new things and new hopes. With the papers for which she had come only a
few yards away, she forgot them. She turned her head slowly. His arms
seemed to steal out from those long, silken sleeves. She suddenly felt
herself held in a wonderful embrace.
"Dear lady of all my desires," he whispered in her ear, "you shall make
me happy and find the secret of happiness yourself in giving, in
suffering, in love."
For a long and wonderful moment she lay in his arms. She felt the soft
burning of his kisses, the call of the room with its intoxicating, yet
strangely ascetic perfume, the room to which all the time he seemed to
be gently leading her. And then a flood of strange, alien recollections
and realisations seemed to bring her from a better place back to a
worse,--the sound of a passing taxicab, the distant booming of Big Ben,
sounds of the world outside, the actual day-by-day world, with its
day-by-day code of morals, the world in which she lived, and her
friends, and all that had made life for her. She drew away, and he
watched the change in her.
"I want to go!" she cried. "Let me go!"
"You are no prisoner," he assured her sadly.
He clapped his hands. She had reached the door by now and found the
handle yield to her fingers. Outside in the hall, the front door stood
open, and a heavy rain was beating in on the white flags. She looked
around. She was in her own atmosphere here. Their eyes met, and his were
very sorrowful.
"My servants are assembling," he said. "You will find a car at your
service."
Even then she hesitated. There was a strange return of the wonderful
emotion of a few minutes ago. She hoped almost painfully that he would
call. Instead, he lifted the silk hangings and passed out of sight.
Somehow or other, she made her way down the hall. A butler stood upon
the steps, another servant was holding open the door of a limousine just
drawn up. She had no distinct recollection of giving any address. She
simply threw herself back amongst the cushions. It was not until they
were in Piccadilly that she suddenly remembered that she had left upon
the table the papers he had scornfully offered her. Then she began to
laugh.