XI

Stephen and Nevill Caird were in the cypress avenue when Victoria Ray

drove up in a ramshackle cab, guided by an Arab driver who squinted

hideously. She wore a white frock which might have cost a sovereign, and

had probably been made at home. Her wide brimmed hat was of cheap straw,

wound with a scarf of thin white muslin; but her eyes looked out like

blue stars from under its dove-coloured shadow, and a lily was tucked

into her belt. To both young men she seemed very beautiful, and radiant

as the spring morning.

"You aren't superstitious, engaging a man with a squint," said Nevill.

"Of course not," she laughed. "As if harm could come to me because the

poor man's so homely! I engaged him because he was the worst looking,

and nobody else seemed to want him."

They escorted her indoors to Lady MacGregor, and Stephen wondered if she

would be afraid of the elderly fairy with the face of a child and the

manner of an autocrat. But she was not in the least shy; and indeed

Stephen could hardly picture the girl as being self-conscious in any

circumstances. Lady MacGregor took her in with one look; white hat, red

hair, blue eyes, lily at belt, simple frock and all, and--somewhat to

Stephen's surprise, because she was to him a new type of old

lady--decided to be charmed with Miss Ray.

Victoria's naïve admiration of the house and gardens delighted her host

and hostess. She could not be too much astonished at its wonders to

please them, and, both being thoroughbred, they liked her the better

for saying frankly that she was unused to beautiful houses. "You can't

think what this is like after school in Potterston and cheap

boarding-houses in New York and London," she said, laughing when the

others laughed.

Stephen was longing to see her in the lily-garden, which, to his mind,

might have been made for her; and after luncheon he asked Lady MacGregor

if he and Nevill might show it to Miss Ray.

The garden lay to the east, and as it was shadowed by the house in the

afternoon, it would not be too hot.

"Perhaps you won't mind taking her yourself," said the elderly fairy.

"Just for a few wee minutes I want Nevill. He is to tell me about

accepting or refusing some invitations. I'll send him to you soon."

Stephen was ashamed of the gladness with which he could not help hearing

this proposal. He had nothing to say to the girl which he might not say

before Nevill, or even before Lady MacGregor, yet he had been feeling

cheated because he could not be alone with Victoria, as on the boat.

"Gather Miss Ray as many lilies as she can carry away," were Nevill's

parting instructions. And it was exactly what Stephen had wished for. He

wanted to give her something beautiful and appropriate, something he

could give with his own hands. And he longed to see her holding masses

of white lilies to her breast, as she walked all white in the white

lily-garden. Now, too, he could tell her what Mademoiselle Soubise had

said about the Kabyle girl, Mouni. He was sure Nevill wouldn't grudge

his having that pleasure all to himself. Anyway he could not resist the

temptation to snatch it.

He began, as soon as they were alone together in the garden, by asking

her what she had done, whether she had made progress; and it seemed that

she retired from his questions with a vague suggestion of reserve she

had not shown on the ship. It was not that she answered unwillingly, but

he could not define the difference in her manner, although he felt that

a difference existed.

It was as if somebody might have been scolding her for a lack of

reserve; yet when he inquired if she had met any one she knew, or made

acquaintances, she said no to the first question, and named only

Mademoiselle Soubise in reply to the second.

That was Stephen's opportunity, and he began to tell of his call at the

curiosity-shop. He expected Victoria to cry out with excitement when he

came to Mouni's description of the beautiful lady with "henna-coloured,

gold-powdered hair"; but though she flushed and her breath came and went

quickly as he talked, somehow the girl did not appear to be enraptured

with a new hope, as he had expected.

"My friend Caird proposes that he and I should motor to Tlemcen, which

it seems is near the Moroccan border, and interview Mouni," he said. "We

may be able to make sure, when we question her, that it was your sister

she served; and perhaps we can pick up some clue through what she lets

drop, as to where Ben Halim took his wife when he left Algiers--though,

of course, there are lots of other ways to find out, if this should

prove a false clue."

"You are both more than good," Victoria answered, "but I mustn't let you

go so far for me. Perhaps, as you say, I shall be able to find out in

other ways, from some one here in Algiers. It does sound as if it might

be my sister the maid spoke of to Mademoiselle Soubise. How I should

love to hear Mouni talk!--but you must wait, and see what happens,

before you think of going on a journey for my sake."

"If only there were some woman to take you, you might go with us," said

Stephen, more eagerly than he was aware, and thinking wild thoughts

about Lady MacGregor as a chaperon, or perhaps Mademoiselle Soubise--if

only she could be persuaded to leave her beloved shop, and wouldn't draw

those black brows of hers together as though tabooing a forbidden idea.

"Let's wait--and see," Victoria repeated. And this patience, in the face

of such hope, struck Stephen as being strange in her, unlike his

conception of the brave, impulsive nature, ready for any adventure if

only there were a faint flicker of light at the end. Then, as if she did

not wish to talk longer of a possible visit to Tlemcen, Victoria said:

"I've something to show you: a picture of my sister."

The white dress was made without a collar, and was wrapped across her

breast like a fichu which left the slender white stem of her throat

uncovered. Now she drew out from under the muslin folds a thin gold

chain, from which dangled a flat, open-faced locket. When she had

unfastened a clasp, she handed the trinket to Stephen. "Saidee had the

photograph made specially for me, just before she was married," the girl

explained, "and I painted it myself. I couldn't trust any one else,

because no one knew her colouring. Of course, she was a hundred times

more beautiful than this, but it gives you some idea of her, as she

looked when I saw her last."

The face in the photograph was small, not much larger than Stephen's

thumb-nail, but every feature was distinct, not unlike Victoria's,

though more pronounced; and the nose, seen almost in profile, was

perfect in its delicate straightness. The lips were fuller than

Victoria's, and red as coral. The eyes were brown, with a suggestion of

coquetry absent in the younger girl's, and the hair, parted in the

middle and worn in a loose, wavy coil, appeared to be of a darker red,

less golden, more auburn.

"That's exactly Saidee's colouring," repeated Victoria. "Her lips were

the reddest I ever saw, and I used to say diamonds had got caught behind

her eyes. Do you wonder I worshipped her--that I just _couldn't_ let her

go out of my life forever?"

"No, I don't wonder. She's very lovely," Stephen agreed. The coquetry in

the eyes was pathetic to him, knowing the beautiful Saidee's history.

"She was eighteen then. She's twenty-eight now. Saidee twenty-eight! I

can hardly realize it. But I'm sure she hasn't changed, unless to grow

prettier. I used always to think she would." Victoria took back the

portrait, and gazed at it. Stephen was sorry for the child. He thought

it more than likely that Saidee had changed for the worse, physically

and spiritually, even mentally, if Mademoiselle Soubise were right in

her surmises. He was glad she had not said to Victoria what she had said

to him, about Saidee having to live the life of other harem women.

"I bought a string of amber beads at that curiosity-shop yesterday," the

girl went on, "because there's a light in them like what used to be in

Saidee's eyes. Every night, when I've said my prayers and am ready to go

to sleep, I see her in that golden silence I told you about, looking

towards the west--that is, towards me, too, you know; with the sun

setting and streaming right into her eyes, making that jewelled kind of

light gleam in them, which comes and goes in those amber beads. When I

find her, I shall hold up the beads to her eyes in the sunlight and

compare them."

"What is the golden silence like?" asked Stephen. "Do you see more

clearly, now that at last you've come to Africa?"

"I couldn't see more clearly than I did before," the girl answered

slowly, looking away from him, through the green lace of the trees that

veiled the distance. "Yet it's just as mysterious as ever. I can't guess

yet what it can be, unless it's in the desert. I just see Saidee,

standing on a large, flat expanse which looks white. And she's dressed

in white. All round her is a quivering golden haze, wave after wave of

it, endless as the sea when you're on a ship. And there's silence--not

one sound, except the beating which must be my own heart, or the blood

that sings in my ears when I listen for a long time--the kind of singing

you hear in a shell. That's all. And the level sun shining in her eyes,

and on her hair."

"It is a picture," said Stephen.

"Wherever Say was, there would always be a picture," Victoria said with

the unselfish, unashamed pride she had in her sister.

"How I hope Saidee knows I'm near her," she went on, half to herself.

"She'd know that I'd come to her as soon as I could--and she may have

heard things about me that would tell her I was trying to make money

enough for the journey and everything. If I hadn't hoped she _might_ see

the magazines and papers, I could never have let my photograph be

published. I should have hated that, if it hadn't been for the thought

of the portraits coming to her eyes, with my name under them; 'Victoria

Ray, who is dancing in such and such a place.' _She_ would know why I

was doing it; dancing nearer and nearer to her."

"You darling!" Stephen would have liked to say. But only as he might

have spoken caressingly to a lovely child whose sweet soul had won him.

She seemed younger than ever to-day, in the big, drooping hat, with the

light behind her weaving a gold halo round her hair and the slim white

figure, as she talked of Saidee in the golden silence. When she looked

up at him, he thought that she was like a girl-saint, painted on a

background of gold. He felt very tender over her, very much older than

she, and it did not occur to him that he might fall in love with this

young creature who had no thought for anything in life except the

finding of her sister.

A tiny streak of lily-pollen had made a little yellow stain on the white

satin of her cheek, and under her blue eyes were a few faint freckles,

golden as the lily-pollen. He had seen them come yesterday, on the ship,

in a bright glare of sunlight, and they were not quite gone yet. He had

a foolish wish to touch them with his finger, to see if they would rub

off, and to brush away the lily-pollen, though it made her skin look

pure as pearl.

"You are an inspiration!" was all he said.

"I? But how do you mean?" she asked.

He hardly knew that he had spoken aloud; yet challenged, he tried to

explain. "Inspiration to new life and faith in things," he answered

almost at random. But hearing the words pronounced by his own voice,

made him realize that they were true. This child, of whose existence he

had not known a week ago, could give him--perhaps was already giving

him--new faith and new interests. He felt thankful for her, somehow,

though she did not belong to him, and never would--unless a gleam of

sunshine can belong to one on whom it shines. And he would always

associate her with the golden sunshine and the magic charm of Algeria.

"I told you I'd given you half my star," she said, laughing and blushing

a little.

"Which star is it?" he wanted to know. "When I don't see you any more, I

can look up and hitch my thought-wagon to Mars or Venus."

"Oh, it's even grander than any planet you can see, with your real eyes.

But you can look at the evening star if you like. It's so thrilling in

the sunset sky, I sometimes call it my star."

"All right," said Stephen, with his elder-brother air. "And when I look

I'll think of you."

"You can think of me as being with Saidee at last."

"You have the strongest presentiment that you'll find her without

difficulty."

"When _I_ say 'presentiment,' I mean creating a thing I want, making a

picture of it happening, so it _has_ to happen by and by, as God made

pictures of this world, and all the worlds, and they came true."

"By Jove, I wish I could go to school to you!" Stephen said this

laughing; but he meant every word. She had just given him two new ideas.

He wondered if he could do anything with them. Yet no; his life was cut

out on a certain plan. It must now follow that plan.

"If you should have any trouble--not that you _will_--but just 'if,'

you know," he went on, "and if I could help you, I want you to remember

this, wherever you are and whatever the trouble may be; there's nothing

I wouldn't do for you--nothing. There's no distance I wouldn't travel."

"Why, you're the kindest man I ever met!" Victoria exclaimed,

gratefully. "And I think you must be one of the best."

"Good heavens, what a character to live up to!" laughed Stephen.

Nevertheless he suddenly lost his sense of exaltation, and felt sad and

tired, thinking of life with Margot, and how difficult it would be not

to degenerate in her society.

"Yes. It's a good character. And I'll promise to let you know, if I'm in

any trouble and need help. If I can't write, I'll _call_, as I said

yesterday."

"Good. I shall hear you over the wireless telephone." They both laughed;

and Nevill Caird, coming out of the house was pleased that Stephen

should be happy.

It had occurred to him while helping his aunt with the invitations, that

something of interest to Miss Ray might be learned at the Governor's

house. He knew the Governor more or less, in a social way. Now he asked

Victoria if she would like him to make inquiries about Ben Halim's past

as a Spahi?

"I've already been to the Governor," replied Victoria. "I got a letter

to him from the American Consul, and had a little audience with him--is

that what I ought to call it?--this morning. He was kind, but could tell

me nothing I didn't know--any way, he would tell nothing more. He wasn't

in Algiers when Saidee came. It was in the day of his predecessor."

Nevill admired her promptness and energy, and said so. He shared

Stephen's chivalrous wish to do something for the girl, so alone, so

courageous, working against difficulties she had not begun to

understand. He was sorry that he had had no hand in helping Victoria to

see the most important Frenchman in Algiers, a man of generous sympathy

for Arabs; but as he had been forestalled, he hastened to think of

something else which he might do. He knew the house Ben Halim had owned

in Algiers, the place which must have been her sister's home. The people

who lived there now were acquaintances of his. Would she like to see

Djenan el Hadj?

The suggestion pleased her so much that Stephen found himself envying

Nevill her gratitude. And it was arranged that Mrs. Jewett should be

asked to appoint an hour for a visit next day.