Constantinople; the month of August; the early days of the century. It
was the hour of the city's most perfect beauty. The sun was setting,
and flung a mellowing glow over the great golden domes and minarets
of the mosques, the bazaars glittering with trifles and precious with
elements of Oriental luxury, the tortuous thoroughfares with their
motley throng, the quiet streets with their latticed windows, and
their atmosphere heavy with silence and mystery, the palaces whose
cupolas and towers had watched over so many centuries of luxury and
intrigue, pleasure and crime, the pavilions, groves, gardens, kiosks
which swarmed with the luxuriance of tropical growth over the hills
and valleys of a city so vast and so beautiful that it tired the brain
and fatigued the senses. Scutari, purple and green and gold, blended
in the dying light into exquisite harmony of color; Stamboul gathered
deeper gloom under her overhanging balconies, behind which lay hidden
the loveliest of her women; and in the deserted gardens of the Old
Seraglio, beneath the heavy pall of the cypresses, memories of a
grand, terrible, barbarous, but most romantic Past crept forth and
whispered ruin and decay.
High up in Pera the gray walls of the English Embassy stood out
sharply defined against the gold-wrought sky. The windows were thrown
wide to invite the faint, capricious breeze which wandered through
the hot city; but the silken curtains were drawn in one of the smaller
reception-rooms. The room itself was a soft blaze of wax candles
against the dull richness of crimson and gold. Men and women were
idling about in that uneasy atmosphere which precedes the announcement
of dinner. Many of the men wore orders on their breasts, and the
uniforms of the countries they represented, and a number of Turks
gave a picturesque touch to the scene, with their jewelled turbans and
flowing robes. The women were as typical as their husbands; the wife
of the Russian Ambassador, with her pale hair and moonlight eyes, her
delicate shoulders and jewel-sewn robe; the Italian, with her lithe
grace and heavy brows, the Spanish beauty, with her almond,
dreamy eyes, her chiselled features and mantilla-draped head; the
Frenchwoman, with her bright, sallow, charming, unrestful face; the
Austrian, with her cold repose and latent devil. In addition were the
Secretaries of Legation, with their gaily-gowned young wives, and
one or two English residents; all assembled at the bidding of Sir
Dafyd-ap-Penrhyn, the famous diplomatist who represented England at
the court of the Sultan.
Sir Dafyd was standing between the windows and underneath one of the
heavy candelabra. He was a small but striking-looking man, with a
great deal of head above the ears, light blue eyes deeply set and far
apart, a delicate arched nose, and a certain expression of brutality
about the thin lips, so faint as to be little more than a shadow. He
was blandly apologizing for the absence of his wife. She had dressed
to meet her guests, but had been taken suddenly ill and obliged to
retire.
As he finished speaking he turned to a woman who sat on a low chair
at his right. She was young and very handsome. Her eyes were black
and brilliant, her mouth was pouting and petulant, her chin curved
slightly outward. Her features were very regular, but there was
neither softness nor repose in her face. She looked like a statue that
had been taken possession of by the Spirit of Discontent.
"I am sorry not to see Dartmouth," said the great minister, affably.
"Is he ill again? He must be careful; the fever is dangerous."
Mrs. Dartmouth drew her curved brows together with a frown which did
not soften her face. "He is writing," she said, shortly. "He is always
writing."
"O, but you know that is a Dartmouth failing--ambition," said Sir
Dafyd, with a smile. "They must be either in the study or dictating to
the King."
"Well, I wish my Fate had been a political Dartmouth. Lionel sits in
his study all day and writes poetry--which I detest. I shall bring up
my son to be a statesman."
"So that his wife may see more of him?" said Sir Dafyd, laughing. "You
are quite capable of making whatever you like of him, however, for you
are a clever woman--if you are not poetical. But it is hard that you
should be so much alone, Catherine. Why are not you and Sionèd more
together? There are so few of you here, you should try and amuse
each other. Diplomatists, like poets, see little of their wives, and
Sionèd, I have no doubt, is bored very often."
Dinner was announced at the moment, and Mrs. Dartmouth stood up and
looked her companion full in the eyes. "I do not like Sionèd," she
said, harshly. "She, too, is poetical."
For a moment there was a suspicion of color in Sir Dafyd's pale face,
and the shadow on his mouth seemed to take shape and form. Then he
bowed slightly, and crossing the room offered his arm to the wife of
the Russian Ambassador.
* * * * *
The sun sank lower, Constantinople's richer tints faded into soft opal
hues, and the muezzin called the people to prayer. From a window in a
wing of the Embassy furthest from the banqueting hall, and overlooking
the city, a woman watched the shifting panorama below. She was more
beautiful than any of her neglected guests, although her eyes were
heavy and her face was pale. Her hair was a rich, burnished brown, and
drawn up to the crown of her head in a loose mass of short curls, held
in place by a half-coronet of diamonds. In front the hair was parted
and curled, and the entire head was encircled by a band of diamond
stars which pressed the bronze ringlets low over the forehead. The
features were slightly aquiline; the head was oval and admirably
poised. But it was the individuality of the woman that made her
beauty, not features or coloring. The keen, intelligent eyes, with
their unmistakable power to soften, the spiritual brow, the strong,
sensuous chin, the tender mouth, the spirited head, each a poet's
delight, each an artist's study, all blended, a strange, strong,
passionate story in flesh and blood--a remarkable face. Her neck and
arms were bare, and she wore a short-waisted gown of yellow satin,
which fell in shining lines from belt to hem.
Pale as she was she assuredly did not look ill enough to justify her
desertion of her guests. As a matter of fact she had forgotten both
guests and excuse. When a woman has taken a resolution which flings
her suddenly up to the crisis of her destiny she is apt to forget
state dinners and whispered comment. To-morrow state dinners would
pass out of her life, and they would go unregretted. She turned
suddenly and picked up some loose sheets of manuscript which lay on a
table beside her--a poem which would immortalize the city her window
overlooked. A proud smile curved her mouth, then faded swiftly as she
pressed the pages passionately to her lips. She put them back on
the table and turning her head looked down the room with much of the
affection one gives a living thing. The room was as Oriental as any
carefully secluded chamber in the city below. The walls were hung
with heavy, soft Eastern stuffs, dusky and rich, which shut out all
suggestion of doors. The black marble floor was covered with a strange
assortment of wild beasts' skins, pale, tawny, sombre, ferocious.
There were deep, soft couches and great piles of cushions, a few rare
paintings stood on easels, and the air was heavy with jasmine. The
woman's lids fell over her eyes, and the blood mounted slowly, making
her temples throb. Then she threw back her head, a triumphant light
flashing in her eyes, and brought her open palm down sharply on the
table. "If I fall," she said, "I fall through strength, not
through weakness. If I sin, I do so wittingly, not in a moment of
overmastering passion."
She bent suddenly forward, her breath coming quickly. There were
footsteps at the end of the marble corridor without. For a moment she
trembled from head to foot. Remorse, regret, horror, fear, chased each
other across her face, her convulsed features reflecting the emotions
which for weeks past had oppressed heart and brain. Then, before the
footsteps reached the door, she was calm again and her head erect.
The glory of the sunset had faded, and behind her was the short grey
twilight of the Southern night; but in her face was that magic light
that never was on sea or land.
The heavy portière at the end of the room was thrust aside and a man
entered. He closed the door and pushed the hanging back into place,
then went swiftly forward and stood before her. She held out her hand
and he took it and drew her further within the room. The twilight had
gone from the window, the shadows had deepened, and the darkness of
night was about them.
* * * * *
In the great banqueting-hall the stout mahogany table upheld its
weight of flashing gold and silver and sparkling crystal without a
groan, and solemn, turbaned Turks passed wine and viand. Around
the board the diplomatic colony forgot their exile in remote
Constantinople, and wit and anecdote, spicy but good-humored political
discussion, repartee and flirtation made a charming accompaniment
to the wonderful variety displayed in the faces and accents of the
guests. The stately, dignified ministers of the Sultan gazed at the
fair faces and jewel-laden shoulders of the women of the North, and
sighed as they thought of their dusky wives; and the women of the
North threw blue, smiling glances to the Turks and wondered if it were
romantic to live in a harem.
At the end of the second course Sir Dafyd raised a glass of wine to
his lips, and, as he glanced about the table, conversation ceased for
a moment.
"Will you drink to my wife's health?" he said. "It has caused me much
anxiety of late."
Every glass was simultaneously raised, and then Sir Dafyd pushed back
his chair and rose to his feet. "If you will pardon me," he said, "I
will go and see how she is."
He left the room, and the wife of the Spanish Ambassador turned to
her companion with a sigh. "So devot he is, no?" she murmured. "You
Eenglish, you have the fire undere the ice. He lover his wife very
moocho when he leaver the dinner. And she lover him too, no?"
"I don't know," said the Englishman to whom she spoke. "It never
struck me that Penrhyn was a particularly lovable fellow. He's so
deuced haughty; the Welsh are worse for that than we English. He's as
unapproachable as a stone. I don't fancy the Lady Sionèd worships the
ground he treads upon. But then, he's the biggest diplomate in Great
Britain; one can't have everything."
"I no liker all the Eenglish, though," pursued the pretty Spaniard.
"The Señora Dar-muth, I no care for her. She looker like she have the
tempere--how you call him?--the dev-vil, no? And she looker like she
have the fire ouside and the ice in."
"Oh, she's not so bad," said the Englishman, loyally. "She has
some admirable traits, and she's deuced clever, but she has an
ill-regulated sort of a nature, and is awfully obstinate and
prejudiced. It's a sort of vanity. She worries Dartmouth a good deal.
He's a born poet, if ever a man was, and she wants him to go into
politics. Wants a _salon_ and all that sort of thing. She ought to
have it, too. Political intrigue would just suit her; she's diplomatic
and secretive. But Dartmouth prefers his study."
The lady from Spain raised her sympathetic, pensive eyes to the
Englishman's. "And the Señor Dar-muth? How he is? He is nice fellow? I
no meeting hime?"
"The best fellow that ever lived, God bless him!" exclaimed the young
man, enthusiastically. "He has the temperament of genius, and he isn't
always there when you want him--I mean, he isn't always in the right
mood; but he's a splendid specimen of a man, and the most likeable
fellow I ever knew--poor fellow!"
"Why you say 'poor fel-low'? He is no happy, no?"
"Well, you see," said the young man, succumbing to those lovely,
pitying eyes, and not observing that they gazed with equal tenderness
at the crimson wine in the cup beside her plate--"you see, he and his
wife are none too congenial, as I said. It makes her wild to have him
write, not only because she wants to cut a figure in London, and he
will always live in some romantic place like this, but she's in love
with him, in her way, and she's jealous of his very desk. That makes
things unpleasant about the domestic hearthstone. And then she doesn't
believe a bit in his talent, and takes good care to let him know it.
So, you see, he's not the most enviable of mortals."
"Much better she have be careful," said the Spanish woman; "some day
he feel tire out and go to lover someone else. Please you geeve me
some more clarette?"
"Here comes Sir Dafyd," said the Englishman, as he filled her glass.
"It has taken him a long time to find out how she is."
The shadow had wholly disappeared from Sir Dafyd's mouth, a faint
smile hovering there instead. As he took his seat the Austrian
Ambassador leaned forward and inquired politely about the state of
Lady Sionèd's health.
"She is sleeping quietly," said Sir Dafyd.