Burning Sands Part 5

There was silence between them, but he was aware that she did not take her eyes from him. At length he turned and looked at her and, seeing the admiration in her face, laughed aloud.

"Why you laugh?" she asked.

"I'm laughing at you women," he answered. "How you love a little show of muscle! Good G.o.d, we might be living in the year one!"

"I not understand," she said.

"No, I don't suppose you do," he answered. "But here we are: is this where you live?"

They had stopped before some large buildings in the vicinity of the main station. She nodded her head.

"Please don't go away," she said.

"No," he answered. "I've had enough of the world, the flesh, and the devil for one day. I guess we'll meet again some time or other. Good night, my girl; and thank you for your company."

She held her hand in his. "Thank you," she said, "for fighting that pig-man, Barthampton."

"Barthampton? Lord Barthampton?" he repeated. "Was that the man?"

She nodded. "Why?" she asked, as he uttered a low whistle.

"Gee!" he laughed. "He's my own cousin."

CHAPTER IV-A JACKAL IN A VILLAGE

Tired after the dance, Lady Muriel stayed upstairs next day until the luncheon hour. The long windows of her room led out on to a balcony which, being on the west side of the house, remained in the shade for most of the morning; and here in a comfortable basket chair, she lay back idly glancing at the week-old magazines and ill.u.s.trated papers which the mail had just brought from England. While the sun was not yet high in the heavens the shadow cast by the house was broad enough to mitigate to the eyes the glare of the Egyptian day; and every now and then she laid down her literature to gaze at the brilliant scene before her.

The grounds of the Residency, with the rare flowering trees and imported varieties of palm, the ma.s.ses of variegated flowers and the fresh-sown lawns of vivid gra.s.s, looked like well-kept Botanical Gardens, and appealed more to her cultivated tastes than to the original emotions of her nature. It was all very elegant and civilized and pleasing, and seemed correspondent to the charming new garment-all silk and lace and ribbons-which she was wearing, and to the fashionable literature which she was reading. She, the balcony, the garden, and the deep blue sky might have been a picture on the cover of a society journal.

But when she raised her eyes, and looked over the Nile, which flowed past the white terrace at the bottom of the lawn, and allowed her gaze to rest upon the long line of the distant desert on the opposite bank, the aspect of things, outward and inward, was altered; and momentarily she felt the play of disused or wholly novel sensations lightly touching upon her heart.

So far she was delighted with her experience of Egypt. She enjoyed the heat; she was charmed by the somewhat luxurious life at the Residency; and the deference paid to her as the Great Man's daughter amused and pleased her. At the dance the previous night she had met half a dozen very possible young officers; and the secretaries whom she saw every day were pleasant enough, little Rupert Helsingham being quite amusing. That afternoon she was going to ride with him, which would be jolly....

There was, however, one small and almost insignificant source of unease in her mind, one little blot upon the enjoyment of the last two or three days. A ruffianly fellow had treated her in a manner bordering on rudeness, and in his presence she had felt stupid. He had shown at first complete indifference to her, and later he had spoken with a sort of easy familiarity which suggested a long experience in dealing with her s.e.x, but no ability to discriminate between the bondwoman and the free.

And she had behaved as a bondwoman.

The recollection caused her now to tap her foot angrily upon the tiled floor, and to draw the delicate line of her eyebrows into a puckered frown. The thought which lay at the root of her discomfort was this: she had pretended that their previous meeting had been at the house of the d.u.c.h.ess of Strathness simply because she had been lashed into a desire to a.s.sert her own standing in response to his lack of respect. The d.u.c.h.ess was her most exalted relative: she was a Royal Princess who had married the Duke, and the Duke was cousin to her mother. She knew quite well that she had not met Mr. Lane there: she had uttered the words before her nicer instincts had had time to prevail.

She had said it in self-defence-to make an impression; and his reply, whether he had meant it as a snub or not, had stung her. "I'm so bad at names: what's she like?" Her Royal Highness Princess Augusta Maria, d.u.c.h.ess of Strathness! Of course it was a snub; and she had deserved it.

He couldn't have made a more shattering reply: he couldn't have said more plainly to her "Now, no airs with me, please!-to me you are just you."

The recollection of the incident was unpleasant; it made her feel small.

She had behaved no better than the servants and shopkeepers who delight to speak in familiar terms of d.u.c.h.esses and dukes. However!... she did not suppose that she would see the man again: he belonged to the desert, not to Cairo; and with this consolation, she dismissed the matter from her mind.

When at last she descended the stairs at the sound of the gong, she came upon General Smith-Evered, who had called to see Lord Blair upon some matter of business, and was just stumping across the hall on his way out. He was a very martial little man. He greeted her with jocularity tempered by deference; he kissed her hand in what he believed to be a very charming old-world manner; he told her what a radiant vision she made as she walked down the great staircase in her pretty summer dress; he described himself as a bluff old soldier fairly bowled over by her youthful grace; and he slapped his leggings with his cane and gloves and kissed his fingers to England, home and beauty.

Muriel knew the type well-in real life, on the stage, and in the comic papers; nevertheless, she felt pleased with the rotund compliments, and there was a pleasurable sense of well-being in her mind as she entered the drawing-room. Here the sun-blinds shaded the long French windows, and the light in the room was so subdued that she did not observe at once that she was not alone. She had paused to rearrange a vase of flowers which stood upon a small table, when a movement behind her caused her to turn; and she found herself face to face with Daniel Lane, who had just risen from the sofa.

"Good morning!" he said, gravely looking at her with his deep-set blue eyes.

Her heart sank: she felt like a schoolgirl in the presence of a master who had lately punished her. "Oh, good morning," she answered, but she did not offer him her hand.

She turned again to the flowers. "Are you waiting to see my father?" she asked, as she aimlessly withdrew a rose from the bunch and inserted it again at another angle.

"I've come to lunch," he said. "I'm early, I suppose. My watch is busted."

Deeper sank her heart. "No, you're not early," she replied, "the gong's gone."

"Good!" he exclaimed; "then you haven't got a party. I was shy about my clothes."

He was wearing the same clothes in which she had seen him the night before, except that he appeared to have a clean collar and shirt, his hair was carefully combed back, and he had evidently visited a barber.

"Do sit down," she said.

"Thanks," he answered, and remained where he was, his hands deep in the pockets of his jacket, and his eyes fixed upon her.

There was an awkward pause, awkward, that is to say, to Muriel, who could not for the life of her think what to talk about.

"Will you smoke a cigarette?" she asked, handing him the box as a preliminary to an escape from the room.

He took it from her unthinkingly, and, without opening it, put it down upon a table.

"I've remembered where it was we met," he remarked suddenly, as she moved towards the door.

"Really?" There was a note of a.s.sumed indifference in her voice; and, as she turned and came back to him, she made a desperate attempt to emulate the cuc.u.mber. She felt that there was a challenge in his words, in face of which she could not honourably run away.

"Yes," he said. "It was at Eastbourne, at your school. I came down to see your head mistress, who was a friend of mine; and they let you come into the drawing-room to tea."

A wave of recollection pa.s.sed over her mind. "Of course," she exclaimed, "that was it."

They had let her, they had _allowed_ her, to come into the drawing-room to have the honour of making his acquaintance! She paused: the scene of their meeting developed in her mind. A girl had rushed into the schoolroom where she was reading, and had told her that she and one or two others were to go into the drawing-room to make themselves polite to this man, who was described as a great scholar and explorer. She had gone in shyly, and had shaken hands with him, and he had stared at her and, later, had turned his back on her; and, after he had gone, the headmistress had commended her manners as having been quiet, ladylike, and respectful. Respectful!

He was smiling at her when she looked up at him once more. "You were wrong about it being at your cousin's," he said.

Muriel felt as though she had been smacked. "Oh, I only suggested that,"

she replied, witheringly, "to help you out. I didn't really suppose that you knew her."

"I know very few people," he answered, unmoved. "I can't afford the time. Life is such a 'brief candle' that a man has to choose one of its two pleasures-sociability or study: he can't enjoy both."

She looked at him curiously. He must have a tough hide, she thought, to be unruffled by a remark so biting as that she had made. For a moment she stared straight at him, her hand resting on her hip. Then she caught sight of herself in the great mirror against the wall, and her hand slipped hastily from its resting-place: her att.i.tude had been that of a common Spanish dancing-girl. Her eyes fell before his.

"I'll go and find the others," she said, and turned from him.

As she did so Lord Blair hurried into the room. He was wearing a hot-weather suit of some sort of drab-coloured silk, straight from the laundry, where, one might have supposed, the trousers had been accidentally shrunk. His stiff and s.p.a.cious collar, and his expansive tie, folded in the four-in-hand manner and fastened with a large gold pin, detracted from the sense of coolness suggested by his suit; but a rose in his b.u.t.tonhole gave a comfortable touch of nature to an otherwise artificial figure.