The Palace of Darkened Windows Part 16

After a pause, "Oh, why did I come!" said Arlee in choking bitterness.

The little dancer turned, and, sitting there cross-legged on the couch like a squat little idol, her chin sunk in her palm, her dark eyes staring unwinkingly at Arlee, gave the girl a long, strange scrutiny.

"You do not like him?" she said.

"I hate him!"

"But you came to tea?"

"To meet his sister. To see the palace."

"His sister? Did he show you one?"

"Yes--a woman with red hair. A Turkish woman. She spoke French to me."

"Ah--that would be Seniha!"

"Seniha? I don't know. She played the piano. Has he more than one sister?"

But as she put the question a sudden flash of intuition forestalled the dancer's mocking cry of "Sister!" And as Fritzi hurried on, "He has no sister--not here, anyway," Arlee's thoughts ran back to the beginning of that very evening which seemed so long ago when she had plunged wildly into those unknown rooms, and saw again that painted, jeweled woman with her outstretched arms.

"She is his wife," the Viennese was saying.

"I--I did not know that he was married."

"Oh, Turkish marriages." The other shrugged, with a contempt a trifle droll in one who had dispensed with every ceremony. "She was his second. The first was a little girl, he said. The match was made for him. She is dead. This Seniha was her cousin, a cousin who was divorced and she lived with the wife. And our pretty Hamdi made love to her, and she was mad about him and so, presently, it happens that he must marry her, for it would be terrible to have disgrace upon the wife's family. Besides the first wife had no children. So he married her. But _she_ had no children. It was all one fairy story."

Fritzi laughed under her breath in great enjoyment. "So Hamdi was cheated and he has been a devil to her. The first little wife dies and he shut the second up here, teasing her sometimes, sometimes making love when he is dull, but forcing her to his will for fear he will divorce her.... How she must have hated you, when she had to play that sister. Except that she was glad that _I_ was being put aside," the dancer added with quick spite. "I think she would put poison in my meat if she did not fear Hamdi so.... And always she hopes that he will come back to her. I have seen her waiting, night after night----"

And Arlee thought of the jewels and the silks ... and the long, long, silent hours.... Slowly she put out her hand and snuffed out the smoking wick, then raised her eyes to where the painted bars stretched black across the starry square of sky. "Won't _she_ help?" she asked.

"Not she! Hamdi would find her out.... Not through her can you get word to your friends. For you have friends here? And they will help you? And then you will help me?"

"Oh, yes, if I can get help," promised Arlee. "But I am afraid my friends have gone up the Nile--and there are just--just one or two left in Cairo that would help. And I must get word to them _at once_. What is the best way? Couldn't I push a note through the windows on the street? Someone might see that!"

"Yes, the doorkeeper. No, that is not safe.... If only that girl were sure----"

"Mariayah?" cried Arlee.

"No, the other--the little one with the wart over her eye. Have you seen her? Well, watch for her, then. She has an itching palm--she may help. But only in little things, of course, for she is afraid.

And I have no money left and she is afraid to take a jewel."

"I have almost no money," said Arlee blankly. "Only a letter of credit----"

"A letter of nothing here! But promise her your friends will give much."

"Would she mail a letter?"

"Have you stamps? No? She is so ignorant that is an obstacle. And the post is distant and she dare not go far. But sometimes the baker sends a little boy, and if you had money to give she might get a note to him to carry--though, maybe, she burns the note and keeps the money," the Viennese ended pessimistically.

"But I must get help _at once_," Arlee iterated pa.s.sionately.

Before----"

"Before?" the other repeated curiously, "He makes love to you--h'm?"

"He--is beginning."

"Only beginning?"

"Only--beginning." Arlee felt the girl's strange, hard scrutiny through the dark. Then she heard her draw a quick breath as if her eyes on Arlee's flower-like face had convinced her of something against all her sorry little reason.

"Well, that is good then," she said. "Try to keep him off. What does he promise you?"

"Promise me? He does not promise anything."

"But he must say something--what is between you--what?" demanded the other impatiently.

Briefly, her shamed cheeks grateful for the shadows, Arlee told of that walk in the garden, of the flowers and the letter, the scene after dinner. And the other girl's eyes grew wider and wider, and then finally she burst into a smothered little laugh.

"Oh, he is mad, that Hamdi!" she whispered. "He is a monster of vanity--'conquest of the spirit'--h'm, I comprehend. That young man has a pride beyond all sense. You dazzle him--he is in love again like a boy. And he must dazzle you. His pride demands a victory not of force alone.... Some men are like that.... Well, that is your chance!"

"My chance?"

"Play with his vanity--fight his force with that!" said this strange initiator into terrible secrets. "He will believe anything of his fascinations--I know him. And if he is so mad for you that he dares all this trouble to have you here, then he is so mad that you can fool him and make him hold back in hopes to gain more from you. Make him think you are coming, as he wishes, heart and body, but still you would wait a little. So you gain time.... Oh, you must be careful! If he loses hope, if you anger him, why the game is over.

But if you are careful you can gain a few days----"

"A few days," said Arlee in a tense little voice.

"Well, that is something--since you hate him so!"

"Yes, that is something." Arlee drew a shivering breath, her head drooping, her lashes on her cheeks. Then suddenly, amazingly, her chin came pluckily up, her soft lips set with desperate decision, her eyes turned on her counselor a look of flashing spirit. She was like some young wild thing at bay, harried, defiant, tensely defensive. Something of the pathos of her innocent presence there, in that evil palace, utterly alone, hopelessly defiant, penetrated for an instant the callous acceptances of the little dancer and her eyes softened with facile sympathy, but the impression dulled, and she only nodded her head encouragingly.

"Good! That is the way! Women can always act!" she murmured, slipping off the divan and drawing her fluttering robes about her.

"But it is very late and I must go--it is not safe to stay so."

"Where is your room? Could I get to you?"

"No--for you cannot open that panel on the inside--unless you can steal the key from him as I could not! My room--for this present, little one," and her eyes laughed suddenly in challenge, "is up on the top--a little old room all alone. My doors are locked, but there is a panel in my room, too, a panel at the top of tiny stairs, and the lock on that panel is so old and rusty that a knife make it open. So I pushed it open and came down the tiny stairs that end out there in the pa.s.sage way, and I opened your panel. Now I must steal back, but I shall come again, and we must plan."

"But where does this secret pa.s.sage go?" Arlee had followed over the bed, and held aside the heavy draperies while the little Baroff was pushing the panel softly and carefully open. Eagerly Arlee peered out into the darkness beyond. "Where does it go?" she repeated.

"It runs above the hall of banquets and into the _selamlik_,"

whispered the Viennese. "It opens into Hamdi's rooms, he says, and I know that a servant sleeps always at his door and another is at the foot of the stairs. So it would be madness to try that way."

But Arlee stared thoughtfully into the secret place. "I am glad I know," she said.

"Well, good-by, little one." The Viennese was standing outside now, softly closing the door. For a moment her face remained in the opening. "You will not tell Hamdi that I came--no?" she demanded sharply, and then on Arlee's quick rea.s.surance she nodded, whispered good-by again, and drew back her little face.

The wall rolled into place and a gentle click told of the caught lock. The curtains fell back over the wall. And Arlee was left huddling there alone, feeling that it had all been a dream, but for the heavy scent that lingered in the air and the wild fear beating in her heart.