The Palace of Darkened Windows Part 43

"And Hill got you out?"

"Yes.... He got me out."

"But the Evershams--they don't know----?"

"No, no, I've told no one. I'm not going to tell anyone. No one knows of it but you and me--and Billy Hill."

"That's right." He drew another long breath, this time in sharp relief. The color was coming back to his face, splotching it unevenly. "You mustn't tell anyone. You don't know how a beastly thing like that would spread. You mustn't let anyone have a hint.

Not even my sister."

Arlee's eyes were in shadow. Her voice came slowly. "They would think so badly of me?"

"No--not of you--but it's the kind of thing, the impossible things--A girl simply can't afford----"

"She can't afford to have even speculation against her," Arlee finished quietly, but a little pulse in her throat was beating away like mad. She knew he spoke the simple truth, but the taste of it was bitter as gall to her mouth. However she had humbled herself in secret self-communion, she had known no such shame as this.... She felt cheapened ... tarnished....

"It's beastly--but she can't," he jerkily agreed, but with evident relief at her sensible understanding. Perhaps he had remembered Billy's fearful prophecy of the conversation with which the adventure would supply her. "But of course n.o.body has a notion----"

"Not a notion. And I shan't give them any--not till I'm a white-haired old lady in Mechlin caps, and _then_ I shall make up for lost time by boring all my world with the story of my romantic youth and the wild deeds done for me!" She laughed airily, pride high in her face, hiding her secret hurts.

"And Hill got you out," Falconer repeated, with a sudden twinge of jealous envy in his young voice. "He--he's a lucky one."

"_I'm_ the lucky one," Arlee flashed. "Think of the glorious luck for me that sent him to paint there, outside the palace, where a maid mistook him, and so gave a message. Why, it was a chance in a million, in ten million--and it happened!"

"Happened?" Falconer looked at her a minute before continuing. Then he asked quietly, "He told you that he just--happened--there?"

"Yes, he said by accident. He was painting----"

Now Falconer was an honest young man--and a gentleman. Deliberately he brushed away his rival's generous subterfuge. "He doesn't paint,"

he told her. "He did that for an excuse--for a reason to stay outside the palace. No chance directed it."

"Why, how--how did he know? Before----"

"He guessed. He was uneasy from the beginning--he made conjectures and set himself to verify them."

After a moment, "I never knew--_that_!" said Arlee in slow wonder.

"Well, you know now," returned Falconer with a sense of grim justice to the man he had belittled.

In the silence the girl moved toward the steps. He made a gesture to stay her.

"You're not going--yet?"

"Yet?" she echoed, faintly mocking. "It's _hours_."

"But--but we can never see this again," he argued, weakly, parrying with himself.

"We won't--forget it."

The words held a too-keen prophecy for him. He looked at her in heart-beating uncertainty, and it seemed to him that all his future was waiting on that moment. Should he speak? Should he utter that which had been so near utterance when her astounding revelation had stopped him?... After all, he knew nothing of her--but that she was lovely and wilful and enchanting--with a capacity for risk--and a dire disregard of consequences.... She was volatile, unstable, bewildering--so he thought stiffeningly as he looked at her, but he looked too long.

She was the very spirit of loveliness in the silver moon, her hair a crown of light, her eyes deep with shadowy wistfulness, her lips half sad, half tender.... He felt the blood burn hot in his face, and took a quick step to bar the way.

"You must wait to hear what I was saying," he said, with a ring of new command.

She gave him a sudden, startled look, and moved as if to pa.s.s him.

"You were saying--nothing," she answered proudly.

"I was saying--everything," he gave back incoherently. "Oh, Arlee, do you think that story stops me! Don't you know--how much I want you?" and with sudden vehemence he bent to clasp her in his arms.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE BETTER MAN

Down in the court of Rameses, Lady Claire and Hill were straying. A most opportune old bachelor, pa.s.sing with a party of acquaintances, had diverted even Emma Falconer from her dragoning, and the young English girl and her American escort were left for the time to their own devices.

Not much was said. Claire, who had been fitfully gay all afternoon, grew still as a church mouse now as they paced back and forth in the shadows, stealing a slant glance from time to time at Billy's set and silent face. She wondered a little at his absorption. But chiefly she was thinking that she had never seen him look so handsome ... with his brows knitted and his clear-cut lips pressed sharply together ... but the boy of him somehow kept by that wilful lock of black hair over his forehead.

To Billy it seemed that the bitterest drop of the cup was at his lips. Those two--upon the pylon--were they never coming down? He was waiting for them in every nerve, and yet he shrank from the look he might read upon their faces. He thought, very grimly, that this could mean but one thing, and that thing was the end forever and ever, for him.... His heart was sick in him and he longed most desperately to break away from these other women and the sham of talk and dash off to dark solitude where the primitive man could have his way, could tramp and fight and curse and sob and break his heart in decent privacy. He faced with loathing the refinements of torture which civilization imposes.

But the game had to be played. He was no quitter, he told himself fiercely; he could stand up and take his punishment like a man. She was not for him. He had loved her from the first, he had loved her so that he had been clairvoyant to her peril, he had risked his neck for her a dozen times and s.n.a.t.c.hed her from a life that was a death-in-life--and yet she was not for him. She was for a man who had not believed in her danger, had not bestirred himself.... Black, seething bitterness was boiling in Billy B. Hill. Darkly, through a fog, he heard the outer man replying to some speech from the girl beside him.

He understood, he told himself in a burst of despairing anguish, how Kerissen could have plotted for her. Almost he longed to be a scrupleless Oriental and carry her off across his saddle bow.... And then he brought himself up short.

Was that all she meant to him, he asked himself with the sweat of pain on his forehead beneath that black lock which was finding such favor in Lady Claire's eyes--was that all she meant to him?--a prize to be won? One man had tried to steal her; he had wished to _earn_ her--but she was a gift beyond all price and the giving lay in her own heart alone.... And if Falconer was the man for her, then at least he, Billy B. Hill, was man enough to stand up and be glad for her and be humbly grateful to the end of his days that he had been able to save her ... and give her her happiness. For it was really he who had given it to her. And in that thought Billy Hill's young heart expanded, and his soul stretched itself to such unwonted heights that it seemed to push among the stars.

"It is an unforgettable night," said the girl in the rose cloak.

He thought that was just the word for it, and a wryly humorous glint was in the look he gave her. And he thought that she, too, was playing the game mighty stanchly, and had been playing it bravely these three days, since her conquering little rival had made her reappearance. His heart warmed toward her in understanding and compa.s.sion. They were comrades in affliction. He was not the only one in the world who was not getting the heart's desire.

Aloud he answered, "And the last night for me."

Lady Claire looked up quickly. Her voice showed her struck with sudden surprise. "You are going--so soon?"

"To-morrow."

"To a.s.souan?" Odd sharpness edged the question.

He waited a perceptible moment, though his resolution had been taken. "Back to Cairo."

"Oh ... How long shall you be there?"