Burning Sands Part 30

A few days later, when she was more or less recovered, Daniel told her how disappointed he had been that the arrangement had fallen through.

"I expect it was my guardian angel," she whispered, with a laugh. "I had made up my mind to come; and I suppose the angel read my thoughts, and said 'You'd better not,' and sprinkled a handful of germs over me."

Daniel was startled. "Why, you don't think that I...?" He paused. Men are seldom so plain-spoken as women, and seldom face facts so deliberately.

On the following afternoon he was obliged to go to the railway station to pay his farewell respects to a native dignitary on his departure for England upon a commercial mission; and, while walking back through the Levantine shopping quarter, he came upon Lizette who, as he now recollected, lived in this part of the city.

He had not seen her since that night, three and a half months ago, when he had taken her out to supper at Berto's; and he was distressed to observe the change that had taken place in her. She was looking thin and haggard, and her eyes were like the melancholy eyes of a sick dog.

She glanced at him as she approached and a quick smile of pleasure came into her face; but the etiquette which is always observed in the best circles on such occasions prevented her from showing recognition of a client in a public place. (Money-lenders and dentists follow much the same code.)

Daniel, however, knew nothing about such rules of polite conduct. If Lizette were good enough to talk to in a restaurant she ought to be good enough to salute in the street. He therefore pulled off his hat as she pa.s.sed, and, pausing, bid her good day.

"I believe you've forgotten me," he declared.

"Forgotten?-no!" she exclaimed. "I not ever forget that pig Barthampton jete par terre."

"I'm sorry that's what you remember me by," he answered, seriously.

"I remember many things," she said. "But now you are so great, so important: one say you are like the Wazir of Egypt. I astonish me that you speak here in the street. Lizette belong to the night, and to the American Bar."

She spoke with bitterness, and Daniel was sorry for her. She looked ill; and the afternoon sun seemed to disintegrate the bloom of the powder upon her face.

"You're not looking very well," he commented. "Is there anything the matter?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "The matter is here," she answered, tapping her heart.

"In love?" he asked.

"No, not love," she replied, with sudden intensity. "Hate, hate!"

He shook his head. "That's bad. Whom do you hate?"

"Men," she said.

There was tragedy in her face; and Daniel, in his simple wisdom, guessed that what she needed was the friendship of a man who had no ulterior motive. He looked along the street, and, seeing that there was a large French cafe on the opposite side, asked her whether she would care to go in there and have coffee with him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY-BURNING SANDS_]

She hesitated for a moment; but when he had explained that he had no more than half an hour to spare, and that he could not employ the time better than by talking to her, she crossed the street with him and entered the cafe.

"Now tell me what your trouble is," he said, when they were sipping their coffee at a table in the almost deserted saloon.

"O, it is nothing," she replied. "I suppose I am ill. I have-how do you say?-the 'ump, eh? If I had the courage I should suicide myself; but the priest he tell me that the little devils in h.e.l.l are men, and the angels in heaven are men: so you see I cannot escape from men."

"Oh, men are not so bad," he told her. "You, of course, see them under rather startling circ.u.mstances; and, if I may say so, you can't always judge of what a man is by looking at a subaltern in the Guards."

She laughed. "But they tell me they are the elite of England."

"Yes, poor lads," he answered; "but it's not their fault that they think so: it's due to other men being so bashful."

Almost as he spoke a young officer walked past the cafe, under the awnings, with an expression on his face which suggested that he detected a very unpleasant smell in the world. He glanced into the saloon, and, seeing Lizette, looked quickly in the other direction.

"That is one of them," she said. "He come to me every Sunday after Church."

Daniel turned his eyes to her, and there was pity and horror in them.

"Ah, my girl, no wonder you hate us," he declared. "If I were you, I'd try not to speak to a man for, say, six months."

"But how to live?" she asked. "I must get the money to live."

She moved her head from side to side in despair; and Daniel, searching his brains for a solution of the problem, stared out into the sun-bathed street, his brows puckered, his fingers combing back his unruly hair.

"Gee!" he muttered. "You're in a fix! Hav'n't you got any relations in Ma.r.s.eilles?"

She nodded, but without animation. "There is my brother Georges-Antoine...."

"Does he know how you earn your living?" he asked.

"No," she replied. "He think I make the hat."

"How much money have you saved?" he enquired.

She shook her head. "None."

"Well, look here," he said. "I'll pay your fare back to France, if you'll go."

She stared at him incredulously. "Why you say that?" she asked.

"Because I hate to see a girl like you behaving like a filthy beast," he answered sternly. "Oh, why were you such a fool as to start this life?"

"It begin," she sighed, "it begin so sweet. I was very young; and the man he love me so much. He was the real amant-pa.s.sione-what you do not know in England. He used to kiss me until my head went round and round; and I was like a mad one when he came into the room. Never in my life again or before was I so drunken by a man...."

Daniel watched her as she told the story of her youthful love, and he saw her eyes grow drowsy and full of memories.

"You must have been very happy," he said at length.

"Yes, I was happy," she answered, "but I paid for the happiness with tears and weeping and bitterness."

"Why?-did he desert you?"

Her voice, which had grown so tender and so near to a whisper, became light and clear in tone once more. "No," she said, with an almost flippant gesture of the hand, "he died. He had the-how do you say?-the gall-stones."

Daniel finished his coffee, pensively. The tale, and especially its ending, had a sound of stark and terrible truth about it.

"Then what happened?" he asked.

"Oh, then I was a good girl for half a year, perhaps; but presently when another man made the love to me, I say to myself: 'If once, then why not twice?' He was a soldier, big, very strong like you." She looked at him closely. "Yes, he were very like you; and I thought in my heart, 'I love him because he is so brave, and I am like a little bird in his hands.'"