During the next three days Muriel flung herself into her social
engagements with desperation. She wanted to prevent herself from
thinking about Daniel, for her attitude towards him baffled her and put
her out of conceit with herself. She was violently jealous of this
Lizette, whoever she might be; but, somehow her jealousy did not
estrange her from her lover. All the more passionately she wanted Daniel
to belong to her: she wanted to step into his life, to drive all else
out, and to take possession of him. It is true that she meant to hurt
him, to punish him; but, even while being angry with him, she knew that
she would ultimately forgive him.
Had her training been other than that of the typical young woman of the
world, she would probably have regarded her relationship to him as at an
end; but she had been brought up to the idea that men have to be
indulged in their little peccadillos and excused for their excesses, and
now, somewhat to her own annoyance, she found herself exonerating him.
She was hurt, she was offended, she was jealous, she was disgusted; but
she was not completely estranged. She declared to herself with her lips
that she could never feel the same to him again; but her heart, by its
very sorrows, gave the lie to her passionate mutterings.
She did not have many opportunities of speaking to him during these
three days, and she shunned the beginning of what she knew was going to
be a serious quarrel. But on the fourth day circumstances threw them
together: and then the trouble began.
They had both accepted an invitation to luncheon with Colonel and Mrs.
Cavilland; and, Muriel's presence being the social feature of the
occasion, she did not feel that she ought to disappoint her hostess. Nor
could she avoid driving to the house in Daniel's company; and it was
only the shortness of the distance that prevented some sort of an
outburst.
As it was, she was distant and preoccupied, and Daniel looked at her
every now and then, wondering what could be the matter.
Lady Smith-Evered was one of the guests; and the question as to whether
the Colonel should take her or Lady Muriel as his partner must have been
the subject of much discussion. It had evidently been decided, however,
that the daughter of Lord Blair took precedence of the wife of Sir Henry
Smith-Evered; and Colonel Cavilland therefore led the former into the
dining-room, and to Daniel fell the duty of giving his arm to the
latter.
Lady Smith-Evered plainly showed her indignation at this outrage by a
mere colonel of Dragoons upon the martial dignity of the
Commander-in-Chief; and for much of the meal she hardly spoke a word.
Daniel was thus left to look about him; and he observed how gaily Muriel
laughed and joked with her partner, and with Captain Purdett upon her
other hand.
Snatches of her conversation came to his ears; and he was conscious, as
ever, that the things she said in public had no relation to those meant
for his private hearing. When she was alone with him she spoke with
frankness and sincerity; but to other people she seemed to be striving
after an effect, and just now, somehow, he would have liked to have
shaken her, even though she made him laugh.
The colonel was talking about the recent discovery at Alexandria of a
Greek papyrus, extracts from which had appeared in translation in the
Egyptian Gazette.
"It's a treatise on love," Colonel Cavilland was saying. "The Greeks
were specialists on that subject."
"Oh, I thought they were general practitioners," Muriel replied, and was
rewarded with a burst of laughter.
He spoke of the passages quoted as being very charming, direct, and
simple; and Muriel remarked that she had always thought of the Greeks as
wicked old men who sat on cold marble and made hot epigrams.
"But in this case," he laughed, "the author seems to have been a poor
shepherd."
"Then no wonder his views were peculiar," said she. "'Poverty makes us
acquainted with strange bedfellows,' they say."
The colonel glanced at her apprehensively, but Muriel's face seemed to
show perfect innocence. "Oh, well, for that matter," she added,
musingly, "I suppose wealth does, too."
Her host's breath appeared to be taken away by her audacity. He was not
used to the style of chatter current in what are called "smart" circles.
He caught Daniel's eye, and, seeing that he had been listening, winked
at him; but Daniel turned quickly away, and made another abortive
attempt to engage Lady Smith-Evered in conversation.
Mrs. Cavilland observed his difficulties, and helped him to enter the
gaieties at her end of the table; but here, again, he felt himself to be
out of harmony with the laughter, and he began to think himself a very
surly fellow.
Mrs. Cavilland was amusing her neighbours by making fun of the wives of
the minor officials in Cairo; and she was clever enough to rend them so
gently that her feline claws were hardly to be observed, her victims
seeming, as it were, to fall to pieces of their own accord.
"What a cat I am!" she laughed. "Mr. Lane, I can see your disapproving
eye on me."
Lady Smith-Evered leant forward. "Mr. Lane disapproves of everything
English," she said. "He prefers natives."
"Oh, it's not as bad as that," Daniel replied, with a smile. "I've got
the greatest admiration for my countrymen in the rough...."
He checked himself. He felt that he was being a boor. He wanted to add:
"but I detest the ways of this politely infamous thing called Society."
It was Muriel, strangely enough, who came to his rescue. "Oh, don't take
any notice of him," she said, speaking across the table. "That's only
his fun."
If she spoke with bitterness she concealed the fact; and Mrs. Cavilland,
knowing that he had lived much of his life in America, presumed that his
form of drollery must be of that kind to which English people are
notoriously obtuse. She did not wish to be thought slow in the uptake,
and she therefore laughed merrily, declaring that he was "a perfect
scream," which so tickled Daniel that he, too, smiled.
There was to be a garden party at the Residency that afternoon, which,
owing to the anticipated presence of a number of native dignitaries, he
would be obliged to attend. As soon as luncheon was finished, therefore,
he whispered to Muriel, suggesting that they should leave early, and
thus have a little time together before the afternoon's function.
"I _must_ have an hour alone with you, Muriel," he said. "I'm feeling
all on edge."
Muriel shook her head. "Can't be done," she answered casually. "I've
promised Willie Purdett I'd go for a spin with him in his new car."
"Well, tell him you've changed your mind," he said, deliberately. "I
want you."
"I'm afraid you're too late, my dear," replied Muriel, and turned away
from him.
Later, at the garden party he watched her as she moved about the lawn;
and he seemed to be unusually sensitive to the number of young men who
hovered around her. His philosophy had wholly deserted him, and his mind
was disturbed and miserable.
Once he joined a group in which she was the principal figure; and again
he was distressed by the tone of her remarks. It was almost as though
she were trying to offend his ear.
Somebody had said "The good die young," but Daniel had not heard the
earlier part of the conversation; and Muriel replied, "Yes, dullness is
the most deadly thing on earth, and the most contagious."
He did not wait to hear more: he turned his back on her and walked away,
his heart heavy within him. He was utterly out of tune with her.
That evening she was to dine with the Bindanes at Mena House and to
spend the night with them, so as to be ready for an early start next
morning upon an all-day excursion into the desert. It was to be a large
and elegant picnic; and Daniel had been glad to be able to make his work
an excuse for not joining the party.
Soon after dark, therefore, he found himself driving out to the Pyramids
with Muriel and her maid; and on reaching the hotel he asked her to come
into the garden for the half-hour before the first gong would ring.
"Oh, it's so dark out there," she replied. "I want to have a talk to
you, too. Couldn't we find a corner in the lounge?"
"No," he said, "it's stuffy inside."
He took her arm, and led her towards the dense group of trees which
surrounded the tennis court. She did not resist. This state of veiled
hostility was intolerable, and she welcomed the thought of a pitched
battle with him.
The night was moonless; and the hot south wind which had been blowing
during the day had dropped, leaving the upper air so filled with a hazy
dust that the stars were dim. The darkness, when they had passed out of
the range of the hotel lights, was intense; and it was with difficulty
that they found their way to a bench upon the lawn, under the blackness
of the overhanging foliage.
Here they seated themselves in silence; and, though they were close to
one another, each could feel, rather than see, the presence of the
other. The distant clanging of the tram-car bells, and an occasional
grumble of an automobile, reminded them that civilization was not far
removed; but here in the obscurity all was hushed, and there was a sense
of detachment from the busy ways of mankind which was accentuated by the
ominous hooting of an owl and by the gentle rustle of the trees, as the
leaves were stirred by the dying wind.
"Well?" said Muriel.
"Well?" he replied. "Let's have it out."
"Oh, then you know there's something wrong."
"I know you have been trying to hurt me for the past two or three days,"
he answered.
He put his hand upon hers as it rested on her knee, and drew her towards
him; but she resisted the movement, and he noticed that her fingers,
which pushed his own away, were cold.
"Tell me," he said. "What has been the matter? You have made me very
unhappy."
"There's nothing to tell," she answered. "Only ..."
"Only what?"
"I don't think you know what love is," she murmured, and her voice was
so low that her words were almost lost in the darkness.
"But that is just what I was going to say to you," he replied.
She uttered a little laugh. "It seems that we shall always interpret
things differently," she said.
She turned to him, and in the obscurity his face seemed strange to her.
She could not construct the features, nor supply the well-known lines
now lost in the shadow. She saw only the great forehead, faintly white,
and the upper part of his cheeks; but his eyes were hidden in two deep
cavities of blackness, and all expression was extinguished.
"There will always be these misunderstandings," he told her, "so long as
you are tied to this sort of social life."
"I prefer it to the underworld," she answered, and her heart beat, for
she was launching her attack.
"What d'you mean by the 'underworld'?" he asked.
"The world that Lizette belongs to," she replied.
She had said it!--she had hurled her lightning, and now she waited for
the roll of the thunder. But there was no cracking of the heavens: only
silence; and, as she waited, she could feel the beating of her pulse in
her throat.
At last he spoke, and his voice was quiet and clear.
"Please tell me exactly what Cousin Charles has said about Lizette."
She turned quickly on him. "Why should you think it was Charles
Barthampton who told me?"
"Because I was with Lizette the day I first met him," he answered.
"Then you don't deny it?"
"Deny it?" he repeated, with scorn in his voice. "Why on earth should I
deny it?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "A man generally denies that sort of thing
to the girl he wants to marry," she said.
"That only shows how little you understand me," he replied, and there
was despair in his words.
"O, I understand you well enough," she answered, bitterly. "You are just
like all men. But what I can't understand is how you could be going
about with that woman at the same time that you were making love to me."
Again he was silent. It seemed that he had to turn her words over in his
mind before their significance was clear.
"You mean," he said at length, "that if I had told you Lizette was an
old flame of mine now set aside, you would have condoned it?"
"Women have to forgive a great deal in the men they love," she answered.
"You mean," he went on, ruthlessly, "that you think me capable of coming
to you with that woman's kisses on my lips?"
It was she, now, who was silent for a while. "I've got to think you
capable of it," she said at last. "You were with her only a few days
ago."
"Yes," he answered. "I was with her, as you say, a few days ago. Well?"
She moved restlessly in her seat. "That's not the way to ask my
forgiveness," she said.
Suddenly his shadowy bulk seemed to loom up above her. He gripped her
wrist with his left hand, and drew her towards him; while the fingers of
his right hand laid themselves upon her throat. His face came close to
hers.
"How dare you!" he whispered. "How dare you think of me like that? D'you
mean to say that if all this were true, if I were living with that
woman, you would be prepared to forgive me?"
She did not speak. "Answer me!" he cried, and his arms crushed her to
him.
"I don't know," she gasped. "I only know I love you, Daniel."
He loosed his hold upon her. "Oh, you're tainted," he exclaimed.
"Intrigues, jealousies, deceptions, quarrels, reconciliations--they're
all part of your scheme of life. I suppose you revel in them, just as
you revel in the latest divorce case at your gossiping tea-parties, and
the latest dresses from Paris, and the latest dancing craze, and the
latest thing in erotic pictures or sensuous music...."
Muriel put her hands over her ears. "I won't listen!" she cried. "You
don't know what you're saying."
He stood in front of her, his hands driven into the pockets of his coat.
His massive head and shoulders shut out the misty stars, and as she
looked up at him he appeared to her as a black and vaporous elemental
risen from the ancient soil of Egypt.
It was evident that he was trying to control his anger; and when he
spoke again his voice was quiet and restrained.
"I'm afraid I must seem to you very rude," he said, "but when one is
speaking out of the pit of despair the words one utters are black words.
These last few days I've been seeing you with critical eyes: watching
you, listening to you. And the result is ..."
"What?" she asked, as he paused.
"I realize more and more how I dislike all this fooling with the surface
of things--surface emotions, surface wit, surface honesty. I can't get
down to the real You: the veneer is so thick. All that I have seen and
heard belongs to the superficial. I'm beginning to think there's nothing
real or solid under it all. The things you say are clever empty things;
the things you do...."
She rose to her feet and faced him--a shadow confronting a shadow.
"We seem to be getting further away all the time from the original point
of contention," she said, her voice rising. "I suppose that is what is
called 'confusing the issue.' It is rather clever. But please try to
remember that I am accusing you of deceit and disgusting duplicity. I am
accusing you of being with a woman whom even your obnoxious cousin
couldn't stand seeing you with, so that he had to try to separate you."
"Oh, he said that, did he?" Daniel's tone was apathetic.
"Do you deny it?" she asked, quickly.
"No," he answered. "If you believe the story, it has served its
purpose."
"How can I not believe it?" she cried. "You don't deny it."
"Why should I deny it?" he demanded. "It is not a compromise with you I
am looking for: I am looking for your trust."
"Trust!" she scoffed. "You come to me and whisper to me of your
wonderful desert, and the wonderful times we shall have there together;
you tell me that I am your mate, your sweetheart; your chosen one: and
all the time you are carrying on a liaison with a wretched woman in a
back street."
"Yes," he answered, "and, believing that, you decide to have it out with
me and then make it up. Oh, you sicken me! If I were to tell you the
whole thing were nonsense, you wouldn't believe me. You might even be
disappointed. The tale would have been found to have no point: it
wouldn't be up to the standard of the stuff you read in your French
novels."
Muriel sat down upon the bench once more, and her hands fell listlessly
to her sides. "I don't think there's any use in talking," she murmured.
"No, none," he answered. "I shall never get to the real you until you
cut loose from all this. We belong at present to different worlds. I'm
all at sea when I try to look at things from your point of view."
"Very well, then," she said. "Please take me back to the hotel. I shall
be late for dinner."
There was a complete silence between them as they made their way through
the trees and along the gravel path towards the strongly-illuminated
veranda. Through open doors the lounge could be seen, and here groups of
visitors were gathering in readiness for dinner. The chatter of voices
and little gusts of laughter came to their ears as they approached; and
an elegant young man at the piano was lazily fingering the notes of
Georges Huee's haunting _J'ai pleure en reve_.
Daniel paused at the steps of the veranda, but Muriel walked on, and,
without turning her head, passed into the house. He stood for a moment,
after she had gone, staring into the brightly lit room with dazed
uncomprehending eyes: then he turned towards the desert, and presently
was engulfed in the night.