Kate Bindane had just gone up to her room and was standing there alone,
examining herself disapprovingly in the long mirror, when Muriel
staggered in, her face white, her knees giving way.
"Kate!" she cried. "He's gone!"
She threw herself down on the floor in front of a low arm-chair, and
spreading her arms across its seat, buried her face in them.
Her friend stood perfectly still for a few moments, staring down at her
in amazement. She had never before seen Muriel give way to uncontrolled
grief in this manner; and she was frightened by the terrible rasping of
her muffled sobs, and by the convulsive heaving of her shoulders. She
did not know what to do, and her hands hesitated uncertainly between the
whiskey-bottle standing on a shelf and the smelling-salts upon the
dressing-table near to it.
At last, discarding the stimulants, she knelt down by her friend's side,
and put her strong arm around her. The tears had come into her own eyes,
and as she patted Muriel's shoulder, she fumbled for her handkerchief
with her disengaged hand.
"Hush, hush, my darling!" she whispered. "Tell me what has happened."
"He's gone," Muriel sobbed. "The camp's gone. I saw the track of his
camels leading away into the desert."
She could say no more, and for a considerable time continued her
passionate weeping.
At length she raised her head. "There are only some bits of paper and
things left," she moaned; and therewith she returned to her bitter
tears.
Kate rose to her feet. "I am going to 'phone your father," she said,
"and ask him what has happened."
She gave Muriel an encouraging pat, and hastened into the adjoining
sitting-room, where a telephone was affixed to the wall. A few minutes
later she was speaking to Lord Blair, asking him the reason of Daniel's
departure.
"We've just seen the deserted site of his camp," she said, "and poor
Muriel is in floods of tears."
"Dear, dear!" came the reply. "Poor girl! Tell her Daniel has only gone
away for a short time. I have had to send him to the Oases on business,
that's all."
"Rather sudden, wasn't it?" queried Kate.
Lord Blair coughed. "Daniel is always very prompt to act, when action
has to be taken," he said.
"Didn't he leave any note or message for Muriel?"
"No, none," was the reply. "He went away in a great hurry. Am I to
expect Muriel back to dinner?"
"With her eyes bunged up?" exclaimed Kate, impatiently. "Of course not.
I'll send her back to you in the morning. Hav'n't you anything to say to
comfort her?"
There was a pause. "Yes," he replied at length, "tell her I've just seen
Ada going upstairs with two bandboxes. She says they are new
night-dresses from Maison Duprez."
Kate uttered a contemptuous grunt. "That's the last thing to tell her!"
she exclaimed. "Good-night."
She slammed down the receiver, and, going back to her bedroom, repeated
to Muriel her father's explanation of Daniel's departure. This brought
some comfort into the girl's forlorn heart; and a second outburst of
tears, which occurred an hour or so later, was due more to a kind of
self-pity, perhaps, than to despair.
"It's so unkind of him," she cried, "to go off without even saying
good-bye, or leaving a note."
"But from what I gather," Kate replied, "he doesn't think you really
care much about him."
"Ah, I do, I do," Muriel wailed, wringing her hands.
"Well, you know," Kate commented, somewhat brutally, "seeing how you've
been carrying on this last month, I shouldn't have said myself that you
were really stuck on him."
"You don't understand," Muriel moaned. "I wanted to be properly engaged
to him, but he wouldn't hear of it--I told you at the time. I don't
believe he ever wanted to marry me at all," she exclaimed, passionately.
"I believe he only wanted me to run away with him."
Suddenly she looked up, with a curious light in her face. "I wonder...."
She paused. She recalled the words he had said when he first knew her:
"Why don't you break loose?" And then last night he had said: "I shall
never get to the real you until you cut loose from all this." Could it
be that the manner of his going away was meant to be a sort of silent
gesture, a beckoning to her to follow?
She was so absorbed in her thoughts that her tears dried upon her face;
and presently Kate was able to induce her to make somewhat more than a
pretence of tasting the little dinner which had been sent up to them.
Later in the evening, when Benifett Bindane had come upstairs, and when
Muriel had gone to her own room, Kate told her husband that she would
sleep that night with her friend.
"As you wish, my dear," he answered pleasantly. "You must help her to
get over this business. She'll soon live it down, I expect."
Kate looked annoyed. "You needn't be so damned cheerful about it," she
said. "I sometimes think you haven't got a heart at all."
He sat down loosely, and stared at her for some moments, as though about
to make a profound remark.
"Spit it out," said Kate encouragingly.
"I was just thinking," he droned, "that I shall probably get Lane as our
General Manager after all."
She turned upon him. "Oh, you cold-blooded brute! It's always business
first with you. I suppose you're hoping he'll never want to come back to
Cairo."
"Well," he mused, "he evidently feels that life in the Oases suits him
better."
"Ugh!" his wife ejaculated. "I suppose you think he'll be content to be
a sort of pasha out there, with his harim of Bedouin women; raking in a
fat salary from your precious Company, and fleecing the natives to fill
your pockets. It's a pretty picture!"
[Illustration: _A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY--BURNING SANDS_]
"Well, it isn't a prettier picture," he answered, "to think of a fine
man like that messing about Cairo, wasting his time at dinner parties
and dances on a wretched Foreign Office pittance."
Kate did not continue the discussion, and it was not long before she
went to her friend's room, where, entering quietly, she found Muriel
standing in her nightdress at the western window, her bare arms resting
on the high sill, and her gaze fixed upon the obscurity of the desert
which lay black and desolate under the stars. The window was open, and
the drifting night-wind stirred the mass of her dark hair which fell
about her shoulders.
She turned quickly as she heard the footstep, and Kate was dismayed at
the pallor of her face.
"I can't make him out," Muriel said. "I can't make him out. Right out
there somewhere, in that blackness, he is smoking his pipe and stroking
his dogs and yawning himself to sleep. And yet he must know that I'm
here, calling to him and crying to him."
She stretched out her arms, her fists clenched. "O God!" she muttered,
"Let me understand him, let me see what's in his mind."
Kate drew the curtain across the window, as though she would shut out
the dark menace of the desert, and drew her friend towards the bed.
"It'll all come out in the wash, old girl," she choked. "You're not the
only woman who finds her man incomprehensible sometimes."
She looked at Muriel and Muriel at her; and suddenly, like two children,
they put their heads each upon the other's shoulder, and sobbed as
though their hearts would break.
When Muriel returned next morning to the Residency, she went up to her
own sitting-room at once; and presently she sent a message down to her
father, who was at work in his study, asking him to come to her as soon
as he had a few minutes to spare: nor was it long before he came
tripping into the room.
It was evident that he felt the situation to be somewhat awkward; for
his remarks began on a piping note of jocularity, and so rapidly
descended the scale to one of profound melancholy that Muriel was
reminded of a gramophone running down.
"Father," she said presently, "I want you to tell me exactly what Daniel
said about me before he left. I suppose he told you that we had had a
quarrel."
Lord Blair seemed puzzled, and he raised his hands in a gesture
indicating his lack of grasp of the essential points in Daniel's recent
tirade.
"Yes, he told me about the little tiff; but I really don't know whether
I apprehend his meaning exactly. He was very much upset, very
overwrought. It seems, if I have understood him aright, that he finds
fault with you because you are rather--what shall I say?--rather given
to the superficialities of our civilization. He would prefer you _in
puris naturalibus_"--he corrected himself--"that is to say
metaphorically speaking. He said that 'the fashionable world,' as he
called it, filled him with gloom, gave him the ... ah ... hump, I think
he said; and he was disappointed to find that you associated yourself so
fully with the frivolities of society, and were so foreign to the
liberties, the sincerities, of more primitive conditions. I don't know
whether I am making myself clear."
"Perfectly," said Muriel. "I suppose he would have preferred to see me
turning head over heels in the desert _in puris_ ...
what-you-said-_ibus_."
"I take it," Lord Blair explained, "that he was referring to your
mental, not your physical attitude."
"Oh, quite so," replied Muriel; and she burst out laughing, but her
laughter was very close to tears.
Lord Blair patted her cheek. "Ah, Muriel," he said, his manner again
becoming serious, "you mustn't lose Daniel. I would rather that he were
your husband than any man living."
"But I don't think he wants to be my husband, or anybody's husband," she
replied.
"He is deeply in love with you," her father told her.
"That's another matter," said she; and Lord Blair glanced at her in
perplexity.
He was not altogether sorry that events had taken their present course;
for it seemed to him that this temporary disunion would have a salutary
effect on his daughter's character. He could see clearly the faults of
which Daniel complained; and he could not help thinking that this
forceful show of disgust on her lover's part would be instrumental in
arousing her to the more serious things of life. It would be a lesson to
her which would serve to fit her to be the wife of a man of genuine
sincerity.
Moreover, in the case of Daniel, his sudden return to El Hamran, with
his heart left behind him here at the Residency, would probably dispel,
once and for all, that haunting dream of his desert paradise which
otherwise would always cause him to be restless in Cairo. This time, if
he were made of flesh and blood, he would find the desert intolerable,
and in a few weeks he would probably be lured back to civilization by
the call of his manhood.
That Daniel should marry Muriel, and take up his permanent position at
the Residency, was his most ardent hope; and as the present events had
occurred he had fitted them each into place in his growing plan of
action.
In brief, his scheme was as follows. At the end of the month he himself
would have to go up to the Sudan on his annual tour of inspection; and
about the same time the Bindanes would be going to the Oases. He had
expected to take his daughter with him to the Sudan, but, instead, he
would send her with the Bindanes, and thus she would be in a position to
effect a reconciliation with Daniel on his own ground, so to speak.
Hardy Muriel on camel-back in the desert would be more likely to win him
than dainty Muriel in the ballroom; and Lord Blair, priding himself on
his strategy, had almost come to believe that his sending Daniel off to
El Hamran had been a definite move in his game, made with the object of
bringing about this romantic meeting in the desert.
He rubbed his hands together now as he prepared to tell Muriel of his
plan, so far as she ought to know it.
"Now, my dear," he said to her, "you must not fret. I have a little
scheme in my mind, of which I think you will approve. I am going to try
to arrange for you to go out to the Oases with our friends; and thus you
will be able to see Daniel for a day or two, and, if so you wish, you
will be able to make it up with him."
He stood back from her, and beamed upon her, his hands raised as though
he were beating time to a visionary orchestra. But as he saw the
expression in her eyes his face fell, and his hands sank to his side. He
looked at her in dismay, and the thought came into his mind that she was
undoubtedly a Blair; for, like all the Blairs in a temper, she resembled
a beautiful monkey. Her eyebrows were knitted, her eyes were round and
wide open, her lips were pursed, and her jaw was set. He had never
realized before how very attractive she was.
"Do you suppose," she said, slowly and distinctly, "that I shall again
put myself in a position to be snubbed? Do you think I would lower
myself to go out to him in the desert and ask his forgiveness? No! If he
wants me he can come back and ask _my_ forgiveness."
He watched her anxiously as she turned haughtily away. Then he shrugged
his shoulders. "You both seem determined to lose one another," he
remarked; and presently, like a man who has no time to waste, he stepped
back to the door and opened it.
"I never want to see him again," said Muriel over her shoulder.
Lord Blair did not answer, but, shutting the door with a snap, left her
to her bitter reflections.
Five minutes later a message was brought up from Lady Smith-Evered, who
had called to consult her in regard to a proposed picnic; and Muriel
therefore went downstairs to the drawing-room. There she found her
imposing visitor seated upon the sofa behind a great bunch of pink
peonies which stood in a vase upon a low table. She had evidently been
walking in the hot sun, and her face, in spite of its powder, was itself
extraordinarily suggestive of a pink peony in full bloom, so that,
appearing as it seemed to do from amongst these showy flowers, it was
like a burlesque of caricature of the works of nature.
"Good morning, my dear: forgive my getting up," she said to Muriel.
"Your sofa is lower than I expected."
Muriel sat down beside her. "I think Daniel Lane must have broken the
springs," she answered. "He always used to fling himself into that
corner when he had a fit of laziness."
Lady Smith-Evered glanced at her. "Why d'you say he 'used to'? Doesn't
he do it now?"
"He's gone," said Muriel. "Didn't you know?"
"Gone?"
Muriel told her how Lord Blair had sent him off on a mission to the
Oases. Her voice betrayed no trace of feeling as she explained away his
sudden departure.
"Well, my dear," said Lady Smith-Evered, "I know you and he quite like
each other, but I must say I can't understand it. I'm relieved to hear
he has gone. I don't trust him in regard to women."
Muriel uttered a short laugh. "One might say the same of any man," she
replied.
Lady Smith-Evered looked at her curiously. "I wonder what's the real
reason of his being sent off so suddenly," she remarked, a crafty
expression coming into her face. "His going on a mission is probably
only eyewash."
Muriel shrank before her prying eyes, and a feeling of anger was
awakened in her; but she only shrugged her shoulders.
"I wonder if your father has been wise enough just to dismiss him in
this way," Lady Smith-Evered mused. "I'll find out: yes, I'll get to the
bottom of it."
The expression of inquisitive, self-complacent cunning in the woman's
face, and her actual blindness to the real facts of the matter, combined
to arouse in Muriel an uncontrollable hostility.
"Oh, you needn't bother to find out," she said. "You wouldn't understand
the real reason."
"Ah, then there _is_ a secret: I thought as much," she replied, with a
knowing smile. "There's always a secret about the movements of such men
as Mr. Lane."
"Yes," answered Muriel, suddenly seeing red, as the saying is; "absolute
frankness and absolute honesty must always seem fishy to those who can't
conceive what such things mean. If you want to know, Daniel Lane has
gone away because he was fed up with the rotten life we lead here in
Cairo. The sham of it all sickened him. He has gone away to escape from
the pretences and the hatefulness and the pettiness of people like you
and me. He's gone to get some fresh air: he was being suffocated here."
Lady Smith-Evered stared at her in blank astonishment, and the pinkness
of her face turned to a deeper red. "Oh, that's what he has told you, is
it?" she scoffed. "He must think you very gullible."
Muriel rose from the sofa, and faced her visitor with blazing eyes. "I
said you wouldn't be able to understand," she exclaimed. "There's no
mystery about it: he was just frankly disgusted, and off he went. But
he'll come back one day, when the hot weather begins and we've all gone
home. Then he and Father will be able to get on with their work, with
England's work, without being distracted by fussy little interruptions
from women like you and me...."
Lady Smith-Evered managed to raise herself with some dignity from the
sofa. "I wanted to speak to you about plans," she said, stiffly; "but
that can wait now till another day. I don't know what is the matter with
you, but I know we shall quarrel if I remain. I don't care to be spoken
to as you are speaking to me."
Her large bosom was heaving threateningly, and Muriel was abashed.
"I'm sorry," she answered, the light of battle dying in her eyes.
Lady Smith-Evered took her departure without many more words, and
thereon Muriel went directly up to her room again, her heart aching
within her. Here at the open window she stood staring out across the
lawn to the translucent Nile. A native boat, with huge bellying sails,
was making its way slowly up stream; and she could hear the wailing song
of the blue-gowned youth at the rudder. Away in the distance the
Pyramids marked the edge of the placid desert, now bathed in sunlight;
and above, the cloudless sky stretched in tranquil splendour.
She was ashamed of herself, ashamed of her inconsistency. Her mind was
confused, but in its confusion she was conscious of one clear thought,
namely that Daniel would have rebuked her for her show of temper. "Look
away over there at the quiet desert," he would have said. "Do you see
how it is smiling at you for your angry thought and for that flush in
your face? You won't get at the root of things by raising your little
voice in protest."
"O Daniel, Daniel," she whispered, her eyes filling with tears, "you
oughtn't to have left me here alone. You oughtn't, you oughtn't."
And some time later, still staring out of the window, she said: "Did you
go away because you wanted me to follow you? Must I humiliate myself and
come to you? O Daniel, my darling, how I hate you!"