She had come to him! Impelled by her love she had come to him! That was
the jubilant thought in Daniel's rejoicing heart. At last she had turned
her back upon the amusements and pleasures of the old life, finding them
altogether unsatisfying now, and she had come to him! She loved him, and
she had given up all to come to him! No longer was romance to be
sandwiched in between race-meetings and dances, between "At Homes" and
opera-parties: she had renounced the whole thing, and had come to him!
"How did you manage it?" he said, looking at her with admiration in his
eyes.
"Oh, it was quite simple," she laughed. "There was nothing extraordinary
in my joining the Bindanes on their trip; and then ..."
She told him how she had waited until Mr. Bindane was out of the way,
and had then made a bolt for it.
"But what is the next step?" he asked. "What about the future?"
"Oh, man," she cried, "don't talk about the future--that can wait till
you have time to think."
The words may have had no particular significance, but to Daniel they
seemed to be the most wonderful he had ever heard. They meant to him
that she trusted him, that she placed her future in his hands, that she
gave herself unreservedly to him. She left it to him to think out what
he was going to do with her....
He looked at her with deep gratitude in his face; for she had, as it
were, crowned him as lord of their destinies and enthroned him upon the
very pinnacle of eventuality.
He could not take his eyes from her as she stood at the window, the
reflected light of the sunset in her face, her well-proportioned figure
seeming to be more vigorous, more athletic, than he had known it before.
Her smile, always brilliant, was now intoxicating to him; and her eyes
were filled with such tenderness that he could find no adequate response
to their appeal. It was as though his kisses and his words of love were
all insufficient to this great hour; and, with inward, joyous laughter,
he found himself baffled in his search for means of expression.
He lifted her up in his arms, and kissed her throat and her shoulders
and her knees. He lowered her to her feet again, and, with his arm about
her, walked half-way across the room and back. He buried his face in her
hair; held her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers one by one; he
sat her in a deck-chair, and, kneeling before her, laid his head for a
moment upon her lap.
She was his, she belonged to him!--the thought went coursing through his
brain in headlong career, breaking down his reserve, overthrowing the
walls of the citadel of his being.
At last, forcing himself down from the heights to the practicalities, he
went to the door and shouted for tea; but Hussein, who, like most loyal
Egyptian servants, regarded himself, with due deference, as _ibn el
bet_, "son of the house," or "one of the family" as we should say, had
thrown himself whole-heartedly into his master's excitement, and had
already prepared the tea and had opened the choicest tin of biscuits in
the store-cupboard.
Muriel was hungry after her long ride; but she had so much to say, and
the interruptions induced by their love were so frequent, that the meal
occupied a great deal of time. She told him of the journey from Egypt,
and of the wonders of the desert which had been revealed to her; she
spoke of the bath that day in the pool at the roadside; she described
her sensations of increasing happiness and well-being as day by day the
old routine of her life had slipped further from her; and she talked
with enthusiasm of the beauties of El Hamran as she had approached it
just now from the high ground.
"I spotted this old ruin of yours from miles away," she said, "and we
skirted along the high ground on this side of the Oasis until we came
without a single wrong turning to your door."
She went to the window, and, standing there with her arm linked in his,
gazed in silence over the shimmering sea of the tree-tops. Upon the near
side the shadow of the cliffs was spread, and the foliage seemed here to
be tinged with cobalt and purple; but on the far side the mellow light
of the vanishing sun still bathed the green of the leaves with a
tincture of gold and copper.
The chirping of thousands of sparrows, as they gathered themselves in
the branches to roost, filled the air with clamorous sound; and at the
foot of the cliff, just below the window, a string of camels went by,
the foremost being ridden by a small boy, dressed in a single garment of
blue cotton, who was exultantly carolling a native song in a
full-throated voice which, with its chucks and gurgles, seemed to be an
imitation of the nightingale.
"What is he singing about?" Muriel asked. "He's nearly bursting with
it."
"It is a part of the story of Leila and her lover Majnun," Daniel
explained, after listening for a few moments; "the part where the Sultan
sees Leila, and tells Majnun that he doesn't think she is anything to
write home about; and Majnun says: 'O King, if you could only see her
from the window of Majnun's eyes, the miracle of her beauty would be
made known to you.'"
The boy's voice passed into the distance; and Muriel stood gazing in
front of her in silence, while the golden light faded from the palms as
the sun went down.
At length she turned to Daniel, asking him to show her over his house;
and, arm in arm, therefore, they went out of the airy, whitewashed
living-room, coming presently to the old monks' refectory, with its
roofing of dried cornstalks, and so to the servants' quarters and the
kitchen, and thence to the ruined tower at the top of which Daniel was
wont to sleep. They ascended this tower together, and from its summit
Muriel could see the whole extent of the building; and, in a rapid
passage of thought, she realized with inward satisfaction that the story
of his harim was a fabrication.
The view from here was magnificent. In the west, above the rugged line
of the dark hills, the sunset was revealed to her in sudden,
overpowering splendour. To the east the Oasis lay in cool shadow; and
here and there a thin wisp of smoke rose into the air. Beyond lay the
silent desert, and the far-off ranges of pink and mauve hills; and above
them the sky was turquoise, fading into grey-blue. The wind had dropped,
and now the chattering of the sparrows was ceasing, so that there seemed
to be an increasing hush upon all things.
The foliage of the palms screened from sight any movement of human life
in the Oasis; and Muriel had the feeling that she and Daniel stood quite
alone in this vast setting, like two little sparks of vibrant energy
dropped down from the hand of Fate in an empty, motionless world.
She looked up at him as he stood before her, his rough grey shirt thrown
open at the neck, his sleeves rolled back from his bronzed arms, and his
white trousers held up by an old sash of faded red and yellow silk
knotted about his waist. He looked down at her, dressed in her silk
sweater, and the same white serge skirt with the little stripe of grey
in it which she had been wearing that afternoon at Sakkara. And as their
eyes met they both laughed, like two playmates of childhood who had
quarrelled, and whose quarrel was now forgotten.
Presently he led her down the stairs again and across the outer kitchen
yard. Here her dragoman, Mustafa, was waiting to take his orders; and he
now asked permission to ride over to the house of his brother-in-law,
which was situated at the far end of the Oasis, and there to spend the
night; and this Muriel at once gave him.
"Where are the camels?" she asked; and in reply he pointed to a shed
built against the outer wall of the monastery near the entrance. Here,
also, were the three yellow dogs, who, knowing her well, came now to her
with the fawning attitudes and uncertainly wagging tails of the real
pariah breed.
Hussein was lighting the lamps in the living-room when they returned;
and he paused to ask whether the evening meal should be served at the
usual hour. Daniel referred him to Muriel. "Any time you like," she
answered, smiling happily at Daniel, as though even the arranging of
such trivial details were a matter of delight. "I want a bath first, if
I can have one."
At this Daniel suddenly laughed. "Gee!" he exclaimed, "I'd forgotten to
fix up a bedroom for you." He scratched his head. "Now where on earth am
I to put you?"
There was a small whitewashed chamber--originally a monk's cell--opening
off the refectory. This, Daniel used as his dressing-room, and in it
stood his large tin foot-bath. He now told his servant, therefore, to
set up the spare camp-bed in that room, to prepare the bath, and to
remove his own belongings to the chamber at the base of the tower below
the stairs.
"You won't be nervous alone there, will you?" he asked her, and she
shook her head. "If you feel lonely or frightened, you've only got to
slip round to my tower and shout to me, or come up the stairs and wake
me up."
To Muriel there seemed to be a wonderful intimacy in his words, and she
pictured herself creeping up the dark staircase in the night, and
standing by her lover's bedside under the stars, whispering to him that
she could not sleep.
Hussein was not long in carrying out his instructions, and soon he came
back to announce that the bath was ready. Therewith, Daniel took Muriel
to this room, which looked exceedingly clean and comfortable in the
lamplight. Towels and jugs of hot and cold water stood upon the
grass-matted floor beside the bath-tub; the camp-bed had been made up in
one corner; and Muriel's dressing-case stood upon a chair near a table
above which a looking-glass was hung. In place of a door a grass mat was
suspended across the entrance; and the unglazed window, looking
westwards on to the open desert, was fitted with rough wooden shutters
now standing open to the warm night.
Daniel was loathe to leave her even for this little while, and he stood
with his arm about her while she unfastened her dressing-case. He helped
her to lay out her brushes and toilet utensils; and there was a peculiar
and very tender sense of intimate companionship as she handed him her
slippers to place beside the bed and her nightdress to lay upon the
pillow. He made no attempt to go when she began to take the hairpins
from her hair; and, when it fell about her shoulders, he took her in his
arms once more, calling her by so many loving names that her brain
seemed to be singing with them, and she could feel her riotous heart
beating as it were in her throat.
At last he left her, and went to his own improvised dressing-room, to
put on more presentable clothes; but when he was ready, and she had not
yet made her reappearance, he went back to her doorway and spoke to her
through the screen of the grass-matting.
She told him he might enter, and he found her sitting before the mirror
fastening up her hair. She was dressed now in a kind of kimono; and he
seized her bare white arms, which were raised above her head, kissing
them fervently.
When at length her toilet was finished, he led her back to the
living-room, where soon the evening meal was served at a small table
upon which two candles burned at either side of a bowl of wild flowers
hastily picked in the fields, where, at this time of the year, they grow
in great abundance; and never in all their lives had either of them felt
so completely happy. Through the open window the stars glinted in the
wonderful sky, like amazing jewels sprinkled upon velvet; and the dimly
lit room, with its series of shadowy domes, seemed to be a magical
banquet-hall, its walls of alabaster and its flooring of marble. It was
somewhat bare of furniture, for many things had been left behind at the
Pyramids; but its very bareness enhanced its Oriental effect and added
to its enchantment.
Hussein had prepared a very excellent meal, not sparing the
store-cupboard; and he had opened a particularly large fiasco of Italian
red-wine to grace the occasion. He had donned a clean white garment,
held in at the waist by a crimson sash; and as he noiselessly entered or
left the room he seemed to Muriel to have taken to himself the nature of
a geni out of a tale of the _Arabian Nights_.
When at last the meal was finished, and cleared away, and she and Daniel
were seated in the deck chairs at the open window to drink their coffee,
Muriel felt that the whole world of actuality had slid from her, leaving
her enthroned with her lover in a palace of glorious dream; and when,
out of the darkness of the palm-groves below, there came to their ears
the distant and wandering sound of a flute, played by some unseen
goatherd passing homewards with his flock, the magic of the desert was
almost overpowering in the measure of its enchantment. She was
bewildered and intoxicated by it; and in Daniel's eyes she found, too, a
light of love such as she had never seen there before.
The hours passed unnoticed, for time had ceased to be; and it was
already late when at last Daniel arose, and stood looking down at her
with a smile upon his face. "Well," he said, with a sigh, "I didn't
think anything would induce me to return to Cairo so soon; but now....
When shall we start?"
Muriel looked at him in surprise. "O Daniel," she whispered, "there's no
hurry, is there? The Bindanes won't be going back for a fortnight."
Her low voice set his heart beating for a moment, but he did not take
the real significance of her words.
"Well," he said. "I suppose it will be all right for you to be here for
a day or two; and then we can ride straight to Cairo and be married by
special licence or whatever they call it." He lifted her fingers to his
lips. "Oh, darling, in less than a week you'll be my wife!"
Muriel stared at him, wide-eyed. It was as though she had suddenly
awakened from a dream. "Oh, but the family will be horrified," she said.
"Everybody will expect a proper wedding in London: after we get home--in
May or June. You'll have to make that concession to the world, my
darling."
Daniel laughed. "Yes, but what about our compromising situation, here?"
he asked. "Don't you see, my sweet, what I mean? Your bolting from the
Bindanes is to me a sort of sacred and wonderful thing that you have
done, because you've put your fate irrevocably in my hands. To my way of
thinking we are already married, because you have openly abandoned
everything and come to me; but I'm not going to give anybody the chance
to question our acts. We belong to each other, and the quicker the
position is regularized, so to speak, the better."
"But who is to find out?" she said. "If I stay with you till the
Bindanes come, nobody will hear of it in Cairo."
He looked quickly at her, his brows drawn together. "What d'you mean?"
he asked, as though he could not follow the workings of her mind.
She laughed. "I mean, I've arranged it all," she answered. "Kate is to
say I was ill, and that I came to you so as not to be a nuisance to
them. She can prevent her husband ever giving me away, and I should
think you could manage the others, or at any rate keep them from talking
until we're married."
He did not answer, but his eyes were fixed upon her. She got up from
their chair, and put her hands about his neck. "This is to be our
wonderful fortnight, darling," she whispered. "It is to be our secret."
He lifted her arms from his shoulders, holding her wrists. "I don't
understand," he said, and his voice was hard.
She looked at him with wonder. She could not comprehend what was
troubling him. "Darling, what's the matter?" she asked, in dismay. "What
I mean is that I've done what you always wanted me to do: I've broken
loose; only I've chosen my opportunity, and arranged it so that people
won't talk."
Still he did not take his eyes from her; but he removed his hand from
her wrist. "You mean," he said very slowly, "that you will return with
the Bindanes, and finish up the Cairo season?"
"Well," she answered, "I've got all sorts of more or less official
engagements, you know."
"This is to be just a stolen fortnight?" he asked, and she was
frightened by the stern tones of his voice.
She nodded, and again her arms sought his shoulders. But he stepped back
quickly from her, and his hand passed across has forehead.
"You are going to cover up your tracks with a pack of lies," he said,
his breath sounding like that of one in pain. "And then you are going
back to your dances and your parties, pretending nothing has happened."
"Oh, you don't understand," she cried. "I've given myself to you, body
and soul."
"Yes," he scoffed, his voice rising. "You've given yourself to me for a
fortnight. A sneaking fortnight that you think nobody will ever hear
about. A fortnight sandwiched in between the middle and the end of the
Cairo season, to fill up the blank time while your father is away."
"But I never want to go back," she answered, her voice trembling.
"If that is true," he said, "why have you arranged everything for your
return? You've given yourself to me, you say! Yes, for a stolen
fortnight, as you call it yourself: it is to be just an underhand little
intrigue. Good God!--and I believed you had given up everything for your
love's sake; and now I find you've given up nothing. You've taken all
the necessary steps to prevent your action being decisive, to make your
return to society perfectly easy. And I thought you had burnt your
boats!"
She faced him angrily. "Oh, you're incomprehensible," she exclaimed.
"You let me see in every possible way that you want me to give myself to
you and to follow you into the desert; you let me understand that this
is what you expect of a woman; you knew that I had heard about your
affairs with the Bedouin women here; you didn't seem to mind my having
heard about Lizette: and then, when I accept your point of view and come
to you, you tell me I've done wrong."
"What on earth are you saying?" he cried. "What do you mean about
Bedouin women? I have never had any relations whatsoever with native
women in my life--never. And as for Lizette, I didn't tell at the time,
because I wanted you to trust me of your own accord; but I will tell you
now. I've only spoken to her twice in my life. Once we had supper
together, and once we had coffee together in a restaurant. That is the
beginning and the end of my relationship with her. Do you mean to say
that thinking me a sort of libertine, you have come out to live with me
here as my mistress for a fortnight? Is that what you mean?"
She did not reply. She sat down on a cane chair near the table, and
twisted her handkerchief to and fro with her fingers. The expression on
her pale face revealed the black despair of her heart.
"Answer me!" he said, sharply.
"I have no answer," she replied. "I thought you wanted me, I thought you
loved me."
He turned from her, sick at heart. It seemed now to him that his worst
fears were realized: he could almost have called her "Harlot." In no
wise had she abandoned the world and run to him, defying the conventions
because she desired to be his mate. She had merely planned a secret
love-affair: she had just slipped out of the ballroom, so to speak, to
enjoy an amorous interlude, and she would be back amongst the dancers
once more before anybody had missed her. This sort of clandestine,
cunningly arranged affair was an insult to the whole idea of union: it
was an intrigue out of a French novel.
He looked at her once more as she sat at the table, and, in his
revulsion of feeling, he thought her kimono gaudy. The expression on her
face was angry, almost sullen.
"I think you must be mad," she said. "In Cairo you wouldn't be publicly
engaged to me, and you made me understand quite clearly that it wasn't
our actual marriage you were thinking about: you wanted me to run away
with you. You always jibbed at the thought of marriage, and were silent
about it; but you talked freely enough about our life together. You made
it quite clear that you regarded morals with contempt; and now, you
suddenly have scruples, and pretend that you are shocked at my having
taken steps to prevent a scandal which would hurt my father's
reputation."
"If you were afraid of a scandal," he answered, quickly, "why did you
come at all? When you arrived this afternoon I thought you had left that
question to me, and were ready to get married at once, which was the
only way to avoid hurting your father--unless I had sent you back this
very night to Kate Bindane. No, you weren't afraid of a scandal: you
arranged it all too cleverly for there to be much risk."
"I was prepared to marry you," she said, "if you really wanted
marriage."
"And if I didn't," he replied, "you were prepared to live with me for a
fortnight. Oh, you make me ashamed!"
"I wanted to save you from these other women," she protested.
"I tell you there never were any other women," he answered. "I'm not a
man out of one of your horrible novels."
"I don't know what you are driving at," she exclaimed. "Anyway I won't
be played fast and loose with like this. I shall go back to my friends
tomorrow, and I hope I shall never see you again."
Suddenly her voice broke, and throwing her arms out across the table,
she laid her head upon them, and cried bitterly.
Daniel did not move. His heart was hardened against her, and he told
himself that her tears were but one of the wiles of her sex.
"No," he said at length, coming suddenly to a decision, "you shall not
go back tomorrow. You have come here for a fortnight, and have made
arrangements for your visit to be secret. You say there is no fear of a
scandal such as would hurt your father. Very well then, you shall stay
here a fortnight whether you want to or not. I propose that we get to
know each other: we've had enough misunderstandings. You have
misunderstood everything I have ever said to you: it has all been warped
and twisted by your miserable society attitude of mind."
"I shall never understand you," she answered, raising her head, and
drying her eyes with the back of her hand. "This is quite final. You've
insulted me and humiliated me. I might have known that that was what
you'd do."
"Very well," he said, "I think you had better go to your room now.
Remember, you are going to stay here for the full fortnight."
"I shall do no such thing," she declared, facing him defiantly.
He gripped hold of her wrist. "Do you want me to have to lock you up?"
he asked; and she quailed before the authority of his voice.
He went across to the door and opened it. Outside, upon the floor, a
hurricane lamp was burning; and this he picked up.
"Here's a lamp," he said, "and here are matches. Now go to bed."
She took them from him in silence, and slowly walked out of the room.
He watched her as she passed across the refectory, the light from her
lantern casting her swaying shadow in huge size upon the ruinous walls.
Then he shut the door, and sitting down at the table, buried his face in
his hands.