The Bracelet

Bracelet Cover

Acknowledgment is made to Nash’s Magazine, The Delineator, Collier’s Weekly and Everybody’s Weekly, in which magazines these stories have previously appeared.

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The Bracelet

“May I see that bracelet you are wearing?”

The girl thus addressed walked over to the man who had been silently watching her, and extended her arm.

“Don’t think that she will take it off and show it to you. She wears it to cover a sore on her arm.” This from a girl who sat in a big leather armchair, quietly relaxed into an attitude of waiting. She was wondering what was going to happen. Evidently this guy didn’t fancy Lois. Perhaps he’d want her. Oh hell! She was tired and she had hoped that no one would come to-night. He was staring at Lois again—seemed to be studying her. What was on the bloke’s mind? Why didn’t he loosen up? Lois had flopped down on the sofa and had tucked the arm wearing the bracelet behind her head.

They were sitting in Ma Bena’s parlour. Ma always referred to that narrow, battered room as a parlour. It was furnished with two leather chairs, a dishevelled sofa whose loose spirals were carefully concealed by cushions, a chaise-longue and a rickety bamboo table with a soiled embroidered cloth. There was a tray on the table littered with bottles and glasses. In front of the window sat a huge blue porcelain Dog of Lin. Its tongue protruded from its curled lips, its up-curving tail was rigid and arrow-tipped. It looked incongruous in the room. Propped against a vase on the mantle was a grotesque doll—long, black satin legs, blue coat, white face with a very red mouth. Someone had stuck a paper cap on its head. It was a room never touched by romance. In it the blood of men ran hot with lust while women sat weary, unrecompensed.

Outside, obscured by the heavy, black curtains, a stubborn mist leant against the window—a grey mist, steaming, dripping, swept by shafts of fog-filled chill—night in San Francisco.

Ma Bena, taking advantage of war-cover and official inattention, had opened her house to certain clients. One pleasure-seeker recommended another. The Chinese doorkeeper detained the clients until Ma examined their credentials. Ma was a Neapolitan, a strange woman, ignorant of the meaning of life, but terribly experienced. She could have given the two girls who lived with her, Lois and Diana, spiced glimpses of a world she had known—but she didn’t. Life was easier now than when she had been young and pretty. Then men wanted more and more of her. Now the men who wanted her were fewer and fewer, thank God. She grew fatter every year, but what did it matter? She had her girls. Her eyes were dark brown, almost black. Her hair, the colour of dim copper, was dyed, but not unskilfully. Her mouth was petulant, her laugh curiously young and spontaneous. Her bosom was a broad cushion. Her overflowing hips were accentuated by the too-short frocks she wore. As a siren she was pathetic, but there was something, determinedly hidden, of the brooding mother about her. Some women managed to secure themselves. She never could with all her efforts.

She came into the room now and sat on the edge of the chaise-longue.

“Aren’t you having something to drink?” she asked the guest.

“Oh, yes,” the man replied. He seemed to come out of a trance.

“Let us have a bottle of wine.” Lois reached up and pressed the button.

A Chinese boy came in and picked up the tray from the table. He straightened the cloth and waited for the man to order.

“Bring us a bottle of wine—iced, if possible,” the man said.

“Can do, sir.”

Silence came back into the room when the boy had closed the door. Ma stretched out on the chaise-longue. Her huge legs looked like two sturdy posts below her short frock. She was remembering, remembering a tall slender man with fine blue eyes and a shock of greying hair who had come to her house in Shanghai—ages ago. This man reminded her of him. That one had promised to come back, but he never returned. He had said something about love. That’s what they called it—that emptiness that could never satisfy a woman who longed for permanency. Some women had men like this one here always in their lives—husbands—sons. He was torturing a cigarette now with his fingers and his teeth.

The Chinese boy came in with the wine. Lois got up and served it. Ma gulped hers and went on with her thoughts. The man put his down on the table and turned to Lois.

“I wish you would come and see me to-morrow,” he said. He took a card out of a case and wrote something on it. He passed the card to Lois.

“Why should I come?” There was a snarl in her voice.

Ma and Diana were all attention now.

“It is important that I see you. I have something which belongs to you—something that was placed in my care.”

Ma got up from the chaise-longue and stood before him. Suddenly her face had grown hard.

“What are you getting at?” she hissed. They were all standing now. Diana had her arm round Lois.

“Lois doesn’t fall for that sort of stuff,” Diana said.

Ma turned on her. “Shut up. I’ll attend to this.”

The man ran his fingers through his thick, greying hair.

“I didn’t know your girls were slaves,” he said. “I supposed they were free agents.”

“They are.” Ma laughed, lightly, derisively, not so much in protest as in affected amusement. After all, he was introduced by Bob Scranton. It wouldn’t do to have trouble with Bob. The men in Shanghai took the girls out sometimes and tipped them well.

Ma turned to Lois.

“Don’t you want to go, dearie?”

“Yes, I suppose so.” Anything to shut Ma up and to hasten the man’s departure, for she was sure now that he wasn’t staying.

“Come at four, if you can. I don’t see patients until five.”

“I’ll be there at four.”

The man turned to the door. Ma followed him out of the room.

“Well, that’s that,” Diana said. “I feel like a cad, Lois. You should kick me for what I blurted out about that sore on your arm under the bracelet.”

“I don’t care. You don’t suppose I wanted him to stay, do you?”

“No, I know you didn’t, but that’s no excuse for my saying what I did. I was feeling rotten to-night. I am fed up. I wish I had enough money to tell Ma to go to hell. I owe her a wad.” Diana let her emaciated body slump down again into the depths of the big chair. She stretched out her long legs. She was pale and very thin, with gleaming black hair and long-lashed, purple-blue eyes, a crimson mouth much too wide and heavily made-up, yet curiously seductive. Decadent, neurotic, overstrung, not a healthy girl, but one made alluring by her fragility—one guarding ignorance with a pet pose of sophistication.

“It was my bracelet, not the sore, that put him off, “ Lois said.

“Perhaps, and perhaps not, but that story about having something for you, something left in his care, was bilge.”

“Probably.”

“But,” Diana sat up very straight and stared at Lois, “it might be something from that fellow who skipped out—the one you lived with.”

“Don’t, Diana.” Tears stood in Lois’s eyes. “Too much time has passed for that.”

“You haven’t been here so long, darling.”

“Long enough to have given up hope.”

“Perhaps the old boy has taken a fancy to you. Wants you for himself. They do that sometimes. And you are some looker. I wish I had that red hair of yours, and that profile. Here’s Ma.”

Ma Bena came in. She was smiling. She hadn’t lost anything, for the men paid before they came upstairs. If they decided not to stay that was their business.

“Lois, I’m glad you said you would go along to-morrow and see that man,” she said. “He’s bent on seeing you. Nice fellow. Show me the card he gave you.” Ma’s pudgy fingers reached for the card Lois passed to her. “A doctor, eh. Has a good address.” Ma passed the card back. “See that you keep your wits about you, my girl.”

“Do you think there will be anybody else in to-night, Ma?” Diana asked.

“No, I don’t think so. You girls better go to bed. Anything left in that bottle, Diana?”

“No.”

“Good night, girls.”

“Goodnight.”

*  *  *

Lois was waiting in the doctor’s consulting-room. The Chinese boy had said that the doctor would be in in a moment. What a lot of terrifying apparatus doctors surrounded themselves with! she was thinking. That thing in the corner is an X-ray machine, but that other thing over there by the window—God knows what that is.

A door opened and he came in. In his hand was a bracelet—a bracelet exactly like the one she was wearing. She could scarcely believe her eyes.

“I understood there was only one,” she said.

He put the bracelet on the table and offered no explanation. “Please take yours off,” he said, “and let me see the sore that girl mentioned.”

Lois took off her bracelet and he examined her arm.

“It is as I expected,” he said, “as I feared.”

“What do you mean?” Instead of answering her question he drew a chair up to the sofa where she was sitting and sat down.

“I want you to tell me about yourself,” he said.

“I can’t see why you should be interested in me.”

“Because I knew David Dixon.”

“You knew David—you knew——” She was trying to realise what he was saying. Was she awake? Did she imagine it? Was it only a dream? “Then you are Uncle Dick?” she heard her voice saying.

“Yes. I am the man David called Uncle Dick.”

“He often spoke of you. He told me Uncle Dick was a doctor.” With trembling hands she was clasping and unclasping her purse. He took the purse from her and put it on the table beside the bracelets.

“Tell me your story, Lois. Tell me why I found you at Ma Bena’s.”

“I shall have to begin way back.”

“Do.”

“I first met David in the park—Golden Gate Park. I was sitting on a bench crying. He sat down beside me and asked me why I was crying. I told him.”

“Tell me, Lois.”

“The Orphans’ Home, where I had been looked after from the time my mother handed me in, had put me out to service. I was sixteen. The woman who had taken me from the home had six children. I had to look after them all: feed them, wash them, get them ready for school. I had to do all the cooking, the washing, the ironing, the scrubbing. I never got to bed before eleven o’clock and then I was too tired to sleep. I wasn’t given the same food the family had. You can’t imagine what it was like.” She was looking at him without seeing him. “I knew it would do no good to tell the Matron of the home about it. She was always glad to get the girls off her hands. I ran away from the family I was working for. I slept one night in the railway station. It was the next day when I was sitting in the park I met David.”

Her voice trailed off and ended in a sigh. Waiting for her to continue, he was thinking how Fate juggles human beings in her hands. Presently she went on:

“I told David my story. He asked me to keep house for him. He said that he was a student at the University—that his home was in Honolulu. I said I should be glad to work for him. I can’t explain it, but I felt that it was right for me to go to him. I felt that I had always known him. I know it must seem absurd.”

“I understand, Lois.”

“He soon found a flat and I went to live with him. Can I make you understand how happy we were? How I loved him—how he loved me? He was the only person who ever loved me—who was ever really kind. He engaged teachers for me, for I was an awful ignoramus. I studied English and French. I had piano lessons. I learned to sing—not very well—but David liked me to sing to him. He gave me beautiful clothes. He bought a small car for me. I used to drive round alone when he was at the University. Nights we drove out together. I had few friends. I didn’t need friends. I had David.”

The doctor saw two tears fall on the hand that was lying on her lap. He passed her a cigarette and a light.

She continued : “ When he went home to Honolulu during the summer vacations I stayed in the flat. He wanted me to go to some beach and hire a bungalow, but I preferred to stay in the flat. It held so much happiness. He wrote to me almost daily.” She hesitated. She seemed to be finding strength for her next words. “He went frequently to the Turkish baths,” she said. “Sometimes he would spend most of the night at the bath. One night he went to the bath and that was the last I ever saw of him. Two days later I received a letter from him, enclosing three thousand dollars and telling me that I must forget him, that I should never see him again. I was frantic. I was ill for weeks. My life was a nightmare—days of dread, wondering why David had left me—wondering what had become of him—wondering what I should do when my money was gone—and the nights in between, the lonely ghastly nights. I felt that it was not David’s fault that he had left me. I felt that something beyond his will had made him leave. I knew I could never go back to service. The very thought of it made me want to commit suicide. I thought of many ways to die, but I hadn’t the courage for any of them. When my money was gone I sold the furniture of the flat, the car and some of my clothes. It was then I met Diana, the girl you saw at Ma Bena’s.”

The doctor could see her taking her unsmirched innocence to Ma. He took her hand and held it.

“I went to Ma’s with Diana,” she said. “Then the men came. Horribly they came, their eyes filled with lust, their hands fumbling. My soul turned sick at the sight of them. I wanted to kill them.”

She was crying now. Her slender body was shaking. Sobs seemed to choke her.

The doctor waited until she had regained a portion of self-control and then he said:

“I will take up the story now, Lois. I can’t forgive myself for what happened to you, for it was largely my fault.” She blinked the tears out of her eyes and stared at him.

“Your fault?”

“Yes. David left money with me to give you when you had used up what he sent you. When I tried to find you you had gone, leaving no address. I should not have delayed so long. I kept on searching for you. I resorted to the personal columns of the papers asking you to get into touch with me, but I suppose you never saw the advertisements.”

“No. I didn’t see them. You never expected to find me at Ma Bena’s, did you?”

“No, Lois.”

“Do tell me what happened to David.”

“I must shock you now. What I have to tell you is terrifying. But you must be told—considering what has to be done.”

“What has to be done?”

“I will explain.” How professional his voice had become! The sympathetic friend seemed to have vanished; The physician spoke now. “When David was in the bath, the night he left you, the Chinese attendant saw some reddish-brown spots on his skin. They were somewhat swollen and tender to the touch. The attendant recognised the spots at once. He told David that he had leprosy. The Chinese are familiar with the disease. They have seen it in their own country. I shall not try to explain how David felt when the attendant told him. When he left the bath he came to see me. I had to verify what the Chinese had told him.”

She was stunned. There was no interrogation now in her eyes. She sat there like a stone image. For a moment he wondered if the shock had been too much for her. Then the sympathetic friend went on with the story.

“David told me about you—told me that he loved you. He wrote the letter he sent you here in my rooms. Three days later he left for the Island of Molokai, one of the Hawaiian Islands. There is a leper colony on the island and a famous hospital for the treatment of the disease. He could not go to his home in Honolulu on his way to Molokai, but he got into touch with his father and had money sent here to me. This money was to be given you when you had spent the money he sent you.”

The stone figure on the sofa came to life. “Is he still on the island? Will he die? Can anything be done? My poor darling. I knew he never wanted to leave me. I knew something had happened to take him away—something he could not control—something——”

“He is taking the cure. The disease may remain quiescent for long periods and then show again. A patient must be under observation for a long time before he can be released as cured.”

“Do you think he can be cured?”

“No one can say.”

The blood pounded in her ears like the beat of tom-toms. Everything he said seemed to be unreal, like something said in a theatre. She felt they were carrying on some extraordinary conversation outside the knowledge of her brain. She shifted her gaze from him and stared at the objects in his consulting-room. What a commonplace setting for such a fateful conversation!

“Why didn’t David tell me?” she asked.

“He hoped you had not contracted the disease. It is not very contagious. But it was a forlorn hope in your case.”

“You mean?”

“Yes, Lois. That spot under the bracelet. When the swelling disappears the flesh under it will become insensitive. There are two forms of leprosy, the tubercular and the anaesthetic. You have the tubercular.”

What was that strange light in her eyes? Her face was glowing. Did she realize that all her bridges were burnt? Surely she did not understand.

“Shall I be sent to that Island?” she asked.

“Yes. You must go. I shall arrange at once for you to go. There are boats still going there, although they are fewer than in peacetime. You must stay here with me, Lois, until you sail.”

“Shall I see David?”

“Yes. I shall let him know that you are coming.”

“I shall be with him again, with my love.” She spoke in hushed, subdued tones as though she were already far away on that shut-in tropical island. The nightmare was over—the horror of it all banished by the glory of his words—his words of release. That fear, surf-like, swelling for ever grinding at the rock of her being had ceased. It had fallen away as if by magic. How strange life would seem from the queer new angle—but how full of hope. To see David again, to share his problems, to start living again from the place where life had been broken off. Sorrow could be real delight; could be sheer loveliness, beauty, love, romance—worth any price.

Watching her, the doctor was thinking here’s love beyond my understanding. Could any other woman receive such news in such a way? It would be absurd to pity her—almost an insult. There was no sign of the dramatic intensity of martyrdom. There was only joy. What a smack at the heart-breaking, tragic old world! Most people would consider themselves lost, but this girl was saved. She would escape to freedom and find happiness in what others would call the last extremity.

She had torn herself away from the tropical island and had become conscious of the room she was in—conscious of the doctor who was staring at her. “I owe you everything,” she said. “I can never hope to thank you for my rescue. May I ask you one more question?”

“Do.”

“Where did you get that other bracelet—the one like mine?”

“I had the pair made for David’s mother. She loved me once. We were planning our marriage when Joseph Dixon came here from Honolulu. He was a sugar-planter in Hawaii. He was handsome, rich, charming. She told me she had fallen in love with him—told me that she couldn’t live without him. I gave them my blessing. What else could I do?”

“But how do you happen to have one of the bracelets?”

“When she was married about a year she sent me one of the bracelets saying that she would keep the other. After her death David took her bracelet and kept it until he gave it to you.” The doctor passed it to her. “Put it on again, Lois. Now I must ask my Chinese boy to show you to a room. He will get everything you want. My patients will begin to arrive in a moment.”

“Won’t you ’phone Ma, please?”

“Leave everything to me, Lois.”

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Hannibal’s Gold

“I won’t rent it,” Salvatore Cassar called after the retreating figure going down the walk to the gate. “You can all come here,” the harsh old voice tore down the air like the straight prey-swoop of a hawk, “but it will do you no good.” The click of the gate was the only answer of the man who turned down the dusty road to the sea.

Salvatore stood in the doorway. He was muttering now. His voice seemed to be accumulating wrath. When it got to the snapping point bits of laughter rushed out, streaking it with venom. “He’s the tenth that’s been here. Tenth, twentieth—I don’t care how many may come. They’ll all get the same answer. The village is crowded and all the houses should be occupied. That’s their cry. I know that as well as they do. I’ll rent them the other house, and I’ve told them so. But it’s this one they want.” On went the mumble, threading its way through the pathos of emotion; strutting up to laughter and breaking on the edge of it. His weather-beaten face changed from rage to fear. It became blank like a wall. Then it lighted up with a strange guttering hope.

He was rather undersized, but muscular and straight as a boy in spite of his sixty-odd years. His face was full of criss-cross wrinkles; wrinkles etched by sun and storm, and the enervating Sirocco that blew over the Island of Malta. His eyes, as keen as a wild bird’s, were well in under shaggy brows, like two lights behind curtains. He wore a corduroy vest over a shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the arm-pits. His shirt was tucked in round the neck. A red handkerchief was loosely tied over it. His trousers were well patched and stopped just short of his bare feet.

He shaded his eyes now with his large, gnarled hand. It was an exploring hand, a hand to feel its silent way in and out of things, an unyielding hand. It could hold on like the jaws of a bulldog.

He watched his daughter placing a setting of eggs for a hen. She shook them at her ear, held them against the sun, and then carefully placed them in a box filled with straw. She put the box in the shade of a tree and called to a large black hen, who had other ideas about the Spring than sitting on eggs. The hen clawed the ground and helped herself to a nice juicy worm.

Spring had come to the Island. The Maltese stretched in the sun and laughed and sang and danced, and became a little crazy after the resistance they had had to put up against their winter. They hated the winter as only the children of the South can hate damp and chill and the cutting smart of the wind.

The girl got up and chased the hen. “You must sit on the eggs,” she said. “Come on. We must have some chicks. It won’t take you long. Only a few days.” She caught the protesting hen and carried her over to the box.

Salvatore laughed and made way for the cat to go in through the cat-flap in the wire door. Then he went inside himself.

“I suppose that was another man to rent the house,” his daughter said, coming in, with the pan she had had the eggs in.

“Yes, another one.”

“But, father, the place is so crowded. Father Camelletti told me yesterday that people couldn’t find houses.”

“I know it. I’ve offered to rent the other one.”

“Yes, but the sea comes up there in the winter, you know.”

“The sea will come up just the same if we live in it and rent this one.”

“That’s so. But when one rents a house one wants it to be dry in winter.”

“It was good enough for your mother, so it’s good enough for anyone.” The girl might have asked, with the same argument, why it wasn’t good enough for them in that case. Instead she began to tidy up the room. It would soon be time to get her father’s dinner.

The little house which was causing all the trouble in the parish had but two rooms. In one they ate their meals and sat about with their neighbours in the winter evening. In the other they slept. Lena Cassar’s bed was curtained off in one corner with a small table which held the lamp and the crucifix. Her father had the rest of the room. There was very little furniture in either room. A table and some chairs in the sitting-dining-room, and a chest of drawers and a big screen in Salvatore’s part of the bedroom. Every Maltese house had pictures of Jesus and the Virgin on the walls.

There was a bench outside with a wash-basin, a jug, and a soap-dish where they washed in true peasant style.

Lena longed for a dressing-table; she had seen a pretty green one in a shop window down in Valetta. In fact she dreamed of a room all to herself where she could go in and shut the door. It would have a bed with a wide counterpane which would reach to the floor. The counterpane would have a wreath of flowers embroidered on it in bright colours, and perhaps a verse from the Bible embroidered in white, around which the wreath would twine. Great fat pillows would have slips with ruffles edged with lace. There would be a carpet on the floor and large chairs covered with creton to sink down into; restful chairs with springs. But they were so poor. And perhaps it was wicked to long for things you couldn’t have. Bravely she tried to put the room with its longed-for privacy out of her mind.

And now her father was so strange. She had spoken to Father Camelletti about him. The priest had said, “Patience, daughter. Your father is getting along in years and your mother’s death was a great shock to him.”

She knew it was not her mother’s death that had changed her father. The change in him had dated from the digging of that well. He had made a great hole, got way down in the earth, then suddenly he had filled it up again, shovelling in the earth like one possessed. He said he had decided not to have a new well.

Perhaps he had had a sunstroke. But no, that couldn’t be. The English might have sunstrokes when they first came to the Island, but not the Maltese. They were used to the sun.

After closing the well, Salvatore had made a door at the end of the wine closet in the cellar of the new house and they had moved up from the old place. When Lena had asked him what was behind the door, he had said: “Just a place for turnips and potatoes in the winter.” But he had never stored the winter vegetables down there; and he always kept the door locked. It didn’t do to question him about that door. Surely something had happened to him. Perhaps the evil eye.

She wished they had never built this second house. Her mother had paid for it with the egg and chicken money. But mother had intended to rent it. Now she had been dead almost a year. Why did her father ignore her mother’s wish? The wishes of the dead were sacred. If her father had been all right he would have done as her mother wished. Poor father.

They were shelling peas now into the pan the eggs had been in. She would put them on to boil as soon as she had put the tripe to stew. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Father, next week is Carnival,” she said.

“Going down to Valetta?” he asked.

“No, not this year.” Her answer tapered down to a deep sigh.

He looked up from the peas.

“Why?” he asked. “Don’t you want to go with Mitzi? It’s all right for you to go with Mitzi. You two are going to be married, and you’ve been spoken in the Church.”

“Yes, father, but I have no dress.”

“Get one then. Do you want to buy the cloth in the shop or from the cart?”

Her brown eyes came into round points of astonishment, “You know we can’t afford it, father.”

“Who says we can’t? We can afford anything. We are rich, rich, I tell you.” He threw a handful of peas into the pan with such force they bounded out and rolled oh to the floor.

Tears filled her eyes. Her father was worse than she had imagined. What was this awful thing that had come upon him? She had burned candles to Our Lady; said prayers; done penance. What was this awful trouble that God wouldn’t move out of the way?

“Don’t go to the Carnival as one of those clown things. I hate them,” Salvatore said. “What could you be?”

She pushed the tears back and made a brave effort to smile.

“It doesn’t matter, father. I don’t care about going.”

“Listen, girl,” his voice mounted like a flute, “you are going. I’ll buy the cloth. What is it to be?”

She might as well humour him. “I could be a flower girl,” she said.

“What does that take?”

“Any sort of green cloth. I can cut the flowers off that old hat of mother’s and sew them on the skirt. I’ll wear some real flowers too, and carry some in a basket. The violets are out in Mitzi’s garden and I can get some tulips from Sister Teresa. There are some at the convent.”

She washed the peas and put them on to boil. Should she tell Father Camelletti what her father had said about being rich? Perhaps something should be done. Perhaps the doctor should come. It might be better to tell Mitzi first. Soon she would marry Mitzi, so she must keep nothing from him.

Mitzi was a third-year student at the University. Next year he would finish and then he would work in his uncle’s office. He would be a lawyer. She thought of Mitzi being a lawyer, going to court and pleading cases, getting people out of trouble and arranging wills. Now he was helping his father in the Museum every moment he could take from his studies. His father was curator of the Museum. Mitzi was more interested in the study of ancient peoples than in his work at the University.

It fired his imagination to deeds of daring. Those old men knew how to get what they wanted. They had no scruples. If people got in their way they brushed them aside: not like to-day. Those were the days to have lived.

Sometimes Lena wondered why Mitzi had chosen her. He was not of the people. For generations his people had lived in that great stone mansion down by the sea. Not one of them had ever worked with the soil, or fished. The old mirror over the wash-basin, which told such wavy lies, had it been truthful could have told Lena why Mitzi had chosen her. Her figure was rare on the Island where the women got wide and saggy at twenty. She was slim and supple, with small, arched feet. She wore shoes always. She seldom wore stockings, only to Church and to Festa’s. But it wouldn’t do to go barefoot as most of the girls did. It made the feet so big and red. Awful! She had a delicate, slender face. Her features were so perfect they would have been a little severe had not two wine-brown eyes given them a wistful charm which softened their too definite edge. At prayer, with bent head, her beauty might have been called classic. But when she looked at you the effect was ravishing. Her hair was dark-red, like sunlight falling on old copper. It went off her forehead in big, loose waves. She wore it in a knot low on her neck, Her skin had an ivory tint like thick cream; a skin to put sable or ermine against. In other circumstances her beauty would have given her no rest. A face to commit deeds for: Helen’s face. But she knew nothing of its power. She dreamed of Mitzi’s coming greatness and hoped that he would never regret having chosen her.

She was a day pupil at the Convent, where she learned English, French and embroidery. Before she went to her studies she tidied the house and prepared breakfast for her father and herself. When she came home she cooked the dinner and milked the goat. Just now it was holiday time. There would be no more lessons at the Convent until after the Carnival.

She laid the table. Her father helped her. She wondered if he were still thinking he was rich. If her mother had only lived things might have been different. She might have talked father out of whatever it was.

They spoke very little during the meal. When they finished Salvatore went down into the cellar. She could hear him unlocking the door at the end of the wine closet. Mitzi would be over in the evening. They would walk down by the sea and she would tell him about her father.

*  *  *

Lena and Mitzi sat on the beach watching the portholes of the battleships redden like tired eyes. Most of the Mediterranean Fleet had left the harbour. The aeroplane carrier was there. How ugly it looked under the moon! It was so flat and clumsy when it followed the other ships out to sea in the day-time; ugly until the planes left it like doves rising from their cote. Then it became a floating bird-house. Lena loved it then. Mitzi held her hand. He kept kissing it with kisses like little stabs. She could feel his eyes making tiny hot streaks along her arm to where her short sleeve stopped; then along her profile which cut its fine edge into the moonlight.

Mitzi’s rather Arab face was in shadow. She could see the high bridge of his nose and the way his full under lip curved into his chin. He was not a handsome boy, but he was one marked for success; if success meant wresting from life what one wanted regardless of the means one used. There was something unscrupulous about him. Something of the Arab who quietly steals upon the sleeping caravan.

The moon had put the stars out. It was dripping a silver rain on the miniature beach. Malta had few beaches. Sometimes the huge grey rocks stood back and allowed the sand to drift in. Not often. They were sitting in one of these little spaces where the rocks came around one like huge grey arms.

“Lena, you look like Our Lady,” Mitzi said. “Your face is perfect, like her’s.”

“You mustn’t talk like that,” she said, “it’s wicked.”

“But you are so beautiful, and I love you so.”

“Listen, Mitzi. I want to talk to you about father.” Gently he put her hand down. Then he sat up straight. “Father has been so strange for a long time,” she said. “Of course you must have noticed. To-day he told me he was very rich. Do you think the doctor should come and see him?”

“Old people get funny notions,” answered the wisdom of nineteen years. “It is nothing to worry about. Your mother’s death. You know how he took on after your mother’s funeral.”

“No. That has nothing to do with it,” she corrected. “Of course father grieved terribly when mother died, but it wasn’t then that he became queer. It was while he was digging the new well; the one he filled in.”

Mitzi leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Don’t worry, darling. Perhaps he’s had a touch of Mediterranean fever. Not enough to put him to bed. Sometimes it’s like that, you know. A slight dose of fever can hang around for quite a time, and it makes one feel like nothing on earth.”

She tried to be comforted. She wanted to believe, like Mitzi, that there was nothing to worry about. Now that she had told him she realized what an awful thought had been gnawing at her.

What if Mitzi had believed that her father was mad? That she might have inherited . . . Suddenly her arms were about his neck. “Oh, Mitzi.” He pressed her to him with his fierce young strength forcing her head down on his shoulder while he kissed her lips—a hungry kiss that told of too long waiting. They got up, arm about each other’s waists and walked back to the house.

Salvatore was coming down the walk. He was angry. He walked that way when he was angry: ragged, zig-zag, like a night bird’s flight. “Father Camelletti has been here,” he sputtered. “More talk about renting the house. Will they never let me alone?”

He did not ask Mitzi to come in and sit in the garden and have some wine as he usually did. Salvatore and Mitzi usually sat in the garden to discuss the Island’s politics after Lena had bade them good-night. To-night, Lena, with frightened eyes, bade Mitzi good-night with a hurried kiss and went into the house with her father. She would ask Father Camelletti to say no more about renting the house. It would do no good and it made her father angry.

*  *  *

The Carnival was in full swing. The little streets of Valetta were packed with mirth and madness. Flower-stalls spilled over in streams of scarlet, purple and white. Orchestras, in gypsy finery, played before the cafés. People leaned from the windows to toss down long streamers into the yearly confusion. Tourists looked on, throwing confetti, and trying to wedge their way into the fun. Floats, drawn by flower-bedecked animals, glided along with concealed music making their way through the blur of whirling colour. Out of the sea of motley and glitter certain dancers or costumes would wash for a moment like brilliant foam caught and held on the edge of the seething, undulating waves of witches, sirens, matadores, brigands, clowns and fortune-tellers. Little black masks made eyes so tantalizing above scarlet-painted smiles. Wide skirts, covered with flowers and lace, flapped against slim black trousers, braided with gold and silver, in a furious dance under the amber drip of the sun.

Lena, in a green satin dress with huge ‘bunches of flowers sewn on the skirt, caught the teasing stare of brigands, matadores and clowns, as Mitzi, for no reason at all, hurried her through the crowd. “What a beauty!” he heard someone exclaim as they whirled round a corner. She wore no mask. She had a high comb in her hair with a piece of lace draped over it. One end of the lace was drawn over the lower part of her face and thrown over her shoulder.

She had found the green satin on her table before the crucifix when she returned from an errand on which her father had sent her. She couldn’t believe her eyes. Satin! Heavy, smooth satin! What a lot of money it must have cost! Sister Teresa cut the dress out, and Lena made it with happy, nervous fingers. Mitzi was dressed as a Spanish grandee.

They were not going anywhere in particular. But they had to keep moving, to run, skip, dance—anything the mad crowd dictated. What a day! Blue sky without even a scrap of cloud the size of a feather. Hot, hot sun like strained honey pouring down on the stalls and tables that were ablaze with red blossoms. And all outlined by the lazy blue Mediterranean which couldn’t get up enough energy for a ripple.

“Look at that donkey,” Lena shouted. “It’s dressed up as a ‘dancing girl. And look at the tall thing coming down the street. I hope nothing knocks it over. Do you suppose there’s someone inside on stilts?”

“Of course.”

Mitzi had some money to spend and he wanted Lena to have a good time; the time of her life. He felt so proud of her. All the fellows looked at him with envious eyes. He bought her sweets and ice-cream, ribbons, fans, perfumes; everything the sellers waved in their faces. She received everything with little breathless exclamations. Every few moments he would put his arms round her and they would dance. They had tried all sorts of steps. Some they knew and some they made up. They shrieked with laughter when they stepped on each other’s toes.

It was during one of these dances that Lena saw Carmelo Borg tearing through the crowd as if pursued by a demon. On he charged, waving people aside, bellowing at them if they did not get out of his way. How awful he looked! Sweat poured down his face, wilting the clown-ruff at his neck. He was making straight for them. He jerked at Lena’s arm. “Come at once,” he shouted. “Your father, he is sick. The doctor is with him. I got the doctor and I asked Father Camelletti to come. I heard your father groaning when I passed the house. I went in to see what was the matter. He was lying on the floor. Fainted or something. I got him on to the bed and ran for the doctor.”

Lena’s hand had grown cold in Mitzi’s. She was dragging him towards the bus stand. They ran like hunted things and jumped on the bus as it was starting.

Suddenly everything had grown cold under the sun. The Carnival became a blur. Lena shivered in the heat. Mitzi sat huddled up in fear. His motley had become ridiculous. If only he could tear it off!

They did not speak. He kept pressing her hand as if to reassure her of his strength. Whenever the bus stopped they looked up and scowled. Why did people have to get on and off? Didn’t they know her father was sick and that she was hurrying to him? What had happened? It couldn’t be the obsession. Obsessions didn’t make people faint and fall on the floor. At last the bus stopped at their village. They ran up the hill to the house. All the neighbours were standing about in the garden. The doctor and the priest were inside. Her father’s voice cut through the neighbours’ babble. He was calling for her. “Where is my girl? Where is my Lena? Is she coming?”

She rushed in and flung herself on her knees beside the bed. Tears seemed to be frozen inside her head. They wouldn’t fall. “Father, father,” she whispered. Her voice felt as paralysed as her tears. A great lump in her throat was choking it back. His hand moved along her hair, knocking off the comb. His eyes seemed to be glazing. His voice came out in little separate words hung on a string of pauses. “Get—the—crucifix—Lena. Swear—that—you—will—not—rent—this—house.”

With hands that shook like a leaf, she held the crucifix and took the oath. He fumbled under his pillow and brought out a paper. “Do—not—read—it—now,” he whispered. She had to bend over him and to listen closely; His voice was very faint, almost lost in his throat. His hands moved aimlessly over the counterpane. The doctor motioned for her to leave the room.

She went out into the garden. Mitzi followed. The neighbours closed in on her to ask questions. Mitzi waved them back. Her body was shaken by dry sobs which seemed to be tearing her to pieces. Mitzi said everything he could think of to calm her, but his efforts were useless.

That night her father died. The doctor said there must have been something wrong with his heart for years.

*  *  *

After the funeral Mitzi reminded her of the paper. They were alone in the house. Sister Teresa, who was to stay with Lena until everything was settled, had gone to the Convent to pack up her belongings.

Lena got the paper out of the drawer where she had put it when she had torn off her carnival dress. She held it out to Mitzi. He read it. Such a look came into his face. Something between astonishment and fear. Then he looked at her through narrowed slits as if he had never seen her before. What was the matter? What was written on that scrap of paper? Something to make him stop loving her. Alarm chased the tears out of her eyes. “Give me the paper,” she demanded.

Instead of complying, Mitzi read it aloud. “There is a goldmine under the house. Get the key from behind the picture of Our Lady and open the door at the end of the wine closet.”

Tears coursed down her face—torrents of them. “I told you,” she wailed, “that he was—that he was——” Her lips would not frame the word mad. Mitzi put his arm round her.

“Don’t, don’t, Lena. Come. Get the key. Let us open the door and see what is there.”

“You know there is no gold on the Island,” she sobbed.

“God knows what is on this Island. If the Government only had enough money to find out! Everything so far has been discovered accidentally. The Hypogeum and the Tombs.”

“Yes, but gold——”

“Let us get the lanterns. It can do no harm to open the door and see what is there.”

Lena took the lanterns down from their nails on the wall and filled them. Obedience to some man was the order of her life. First it had been to Salvatore. Now it would be to Mitzi whose will she would not question.

*  *  *

They had no trouble in opening the door at the end of the wine closet. Salvatore had opened it almost every day. It swung back and they stepped into a passage. The light from their lanterns revealed a long tunnel. It was not high, but they could easily have stood upright in it. The ceiling was slightly arched. It was filled with a big silence, a silence that stood stock still. A stunned silence. It had the stun of ages in it. Mitzi flung his lantern about to see if its light would reveal an opening. It did: an opening like the frame of a picture. Stones were perfectly fitted together without cement, into a rectangle about four feet high. The lower edge of the frame stood about two feet from the ground. They stepped over it.

“Better let me go first,” Mitzi said. “There’s no knowing what an opening may lead to.”

They entered a large arched room where horizontal slabs of stone rested on upright slabs round the walls which curved into a circle. There were two stone tables in the centre of the room resting on bases of pitted stone.

When Mitzi noticed them he began shouting: “It’s a Megalithic Temple like the Hypogeum. Look! Look at those tables. It is a temple of the Stone Age people.” He was so excited he lost control of his voice. It rushed through the cave like a sudden wind.

Lena was speechless. She had forgotten her grief. Forgotten everything but the strange monument of another age in which they stood. Was she dreaming? Perhaps it was not real. Perhaps Mitzi was not with her. She reached out and touched him and then she pinched her arm. Yes, she could feel the pinch. She must be awake.

“What do you suppose those horizontal slabs were for?” she asked. How unnatural her voice sounded! It seemed to flap against the stones, like wings.

“The people slept on those stones,” he answered.

“They must have been very short.”

“They were. Much shorter than we are. I wonder if it has as many rooms as the Hypogeum? There is another opening over there.”

They threw the light of their lanterns where he pointed. He went through first.

“This must be the oracle chamber,” he called back. “It is like the Holy of Holies of the Hypogeum, only better. In a better state of preservation.”

She mustn’t lose sight of him for a moment in this weird, shadowy place. But it wasn’t uncanny. And it had no musty underground smell. It had no smell at all. It had nothing but emptiness. Perhaps the world would be like this after the Judgement Day : empty and silent. Not even a smell of life. Midday and midnight were the same down here. Everything passed over unnoticed.

What would the Stone Age people think if by some magic they would come to life and look up through those stone arches and see aeroplanes passing over them while they were lying on the stone slabs? Would they think they were the wings of angels? But those ancient people knew nothing of angels. There was utter peace in the old chamber. It knew nothing of the existence of the world above it. But no one could enjoy the peace that was here, not fully, for he would have to bring his world-thoughts down with him.

“The Oracle stood behind that hole in the wall to interpret the dreams of the people who slept on those stone slabs,” Mitzi was saying. “That is,” his voice echoed on, “if it is like the Hypogeum. You remember the Hypogeum was discovered accidentally—just as your father must have discovered this temple.”

He walked over to the hole and called, “Can you interpret my dream?” His voice quavered through the cave like a struck gong. “You try it,” he said. “If it is like the Hypogeum the female voice won’t echo.” She spoke into the hole. There was no response. “Why can’t a woman’s voice echo?” she asked.

“Because a woman’s voice is much faster than a man’s in sound tone.”

Perhaps the ancients knew that when they built their Oracle chamber, she was thinking. Man was always superior; belittling woman to increase his importance. No doubt man was really more important than woman. He was stronger. He could command and woman had to obey. Woman would always serve him in love and work.

“What sculptors they were,” Mitzi was saying. “Look at the way they curved those arches with no instruments but bits of flint. They knew a lot more than we credit them with knowing; I believe there was a drawing on this ceiling.” He focused the ray of his lantern on it. “I can’t make it out. Come in here.”

He led the way through another passage. “There seems to be some light in here,” she said, when they had stepped through the opening. Can it be possible?” He shaded his lantern with his coat. “No. Yes. Wait a minute. Look at that rock. It is different from all the others. It catches the light from your lantern and reflects it like a mirror. And that rock opposite it is the same sort. The light is reflected from one rock to another.”

“What do you make of it?” she asked breathlessly.

“I think they let in a spot of light somewhere which was reflected by those rocks. It might have been their way of lighting this room.”

He uncovered his lantern and sent its rays about the room. “I believe this was their treasure room,” he said, “where they hid their skins and food. There is a nasty hole over there. Be careful. It must have been a trap for robbers. The robbers couldn’t see it if they came in to steal the treasure. The rocks couldn’t light that hole.”

“Are those anything?” She pointed to what appeared to be two stones on the floor.

He bent down, rubbed off some of their earth-coating, and examined them.

“They are statues,” he said. “Figures of animals. They look like apes.”

He crouched down and passed through a narrow opening behind one of the polished stones. She followed him closely.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, as soon as the lanterns disclosed where they were. “Look at those skeletons. There must be hundreds of them.”

“This room must have been a tomb,” he said. “Some of the skeletons belonged to animals.”

“They have had fires here.” She pointed to a blackened spot on the stones. “Did they make burnt offerings?”

“Yes. And they kept the bones of the animals they offered. Come on, there’s a lot more to see.”

Through another passage into another chamber they went. He was shouting with excitement. “Look! Look at those urns with the ashes in them. They are funeral urns. There are several like them at the Museum. They mean that the Bronze Age has been here too. They cremated their dead in the Bronze Age. Think of it,” he yelled; “two different Ages have occupied this temple. No wonder your father said it was a gold-mine.”

“Father should have reported it,” she said. “It did not belong to him.”

“Yes it did,” he answered emphatically. “It was on his land.”

“But such things belong to no one,” she insisted. “They could never be personally owned.”

He stooped down and picked up something. “It looks like a medal,” he said, “but the carving is rubbed flat. Do you mind if I take it?”

“Why should I mind? This old temple doesn’t belong to me.”

“Remember your promise, Lena.”

Softly, quietly, she. began, to sob. “Let us get out of here,” she pleaded, “back into the air. There seems to be a lot more to it, but it can wait for another time. Please, Mitzi, let us get out of here now. We must bring your father when we come down again. Mitzi, I want you to promise me that you will bring your father. This can’t be kept a secret. What would we do with it? Father was—wrong not to report it. Promise, Mitzi.”

“Yes. I will bring my father if you insist. But how about yours to the dead . . . to your father?”

“I know, dear, but I must report this place. Do come now. Do you think you can find your way out?”

“Yes, I think so. Let me go first.”

He led the way back as he believed they had come. Soon he realized that he had taken the wrong turning. He mustn’t let Lena know. He must keep going as though he had made no mistake. He would pick up some mark in a moment which would lead them out. He almost stumbled into an opening which he had not seen until he was inside the chamber it led to. He had plunged into something up to his knees. The something rattled. It seemed to be loose. He flashed the light on it. Then, his voice made strange guttural noises that wouldn’t go down into words.

Lena thought he was hurt. Getting to him, she sprawled on her face into the loose mass. She dropped her lantern. It went out.

When she looked up she saw Mitzi’s face with the light of his lantern streaked across it. Its expression paralysed her. Was that his face, that weird study in emotions? It changed from astonishment to fear, then it became blank, idiotic. It lighted up with a wild hope, then a look of utter incredulity swept over it. His lips were mumbling something. Had he gone mad? Was this the curse which the ancients, by some weird alchemy, put upon those who disturbed their rest?

He stooped down and picked up a handful of something. He let it slip through his fingers. It made a tinkling noise when it fell on the mass. His face changed again. Aladdin might have looked like that when he saw his wish take shape after rubbing the lamp.

“What is it?” she asked. How her question trembled! Would he look at her when he answered, or would he continue to let those tinkling things drop through his fingers?

“Gold,” he answered. “Gold!” His voice was almost a hiss. “Coins! Must be the entire output of a mint.” He hadn’t looked at her. He went on picking up the glittering pieces.

Dreams were passing through his mind. Dreams of the Phoenicians bringing their treasures from Tyre and Utica to old Kijath-Hadeshath, the city the Romans called Carthage. Perhaps these ancient Hebrews hid the money here to defray the expenses of their Punic wars—those old people in whom the commercial talent burned in a steady, continuous flame. The money was here before the Christian era, when Carthage controlled Malta.

Perhaps Hanno had been here as he sailed round the Pillars of Hercules founding cities. Maybe he asked his god, Molock, to keep this treasure concealed from the prying hand of Time. Perhaps some of the money was used for their wars with the Greeks for the possession of Sicily. It was here, of course, when the Carthaginians payed their enormous indemnity to Rome. What a laugh on the almighty Empire. It was possible that Hannibal, that Napoleon of Carthage, dreamed of a new empire to be founded with this money. Death might have cut short his brilliant career before he could smuggle the money out of the temple. Perhaps it was Hannibal himself who secreted this mass of gold; Hannibal, one of the world’s great lone geniuses for ever testifying to what a single man could achieve.

If Napoleon had known of this gold he need not have taken the silver doors of the Island’s churches to melt down for money for his campaigns. But he had to have money. Even Napoleon had to have money. Every one who ever did anything had to have money. You could conquer the whole world with enough money. You could be another Hannibal, another Napoleon. You could be better than they were for you could use all the new forces, electricity, radio, television, and God knows how many other forces that money could discover. You could be Emperor of the World. You could——

“What money is it?” Lena asked.

“Phoenician,” he answered, still embedded in his concentration.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“But how could Phoenician money get into this Stone Age temple?”

“The Phoenicians discovered this place as the Bronze Age did. But it is evident that no one discovered it since until your father came along.” He sent a laugh rattling down over the coins.

Lena tried to get up. Her feet kept slipping back into the coins. What a strange feeling! Held by gold heaped round your feet! Was anyone ever held by such means before? Only in fairy tales. She picked up one of the coins and held it to the light of Mitzi’s lantern. There was a figure carved on it in profile, but the eyes were in full view as if the carving had been made full face. She picked up another one. The carving was almost obliterated, but it looked like a palm tree and a tortoise.

Mitzi pointed to a mound of earth in the corner of the chamber. “That looks like the well your father closed up,” he said. “If it is, we must be near the entrance. Your father must have traced from here the passage which leads to the cellar. Think of his surprise when he saw this gold at the bottom of the well. No wonder he acted queerly with all this on his mind.”

“Let’s get out of here,” she pleaded. “I can’t stand this place another minute. I feel like somebody else. Do you think a great shock can change one completely?”

“I don’t know. I never thought about it.”

They found their way out through the passage. Mitzi looked back over his shoulder at the gold as if he hated to leave it. The door at the end of the wine closet was only a few feet from the chamber where the gold was stored.

They climbed the stairs and drew in long breaths of air. It felt good to be in the open air again. They washed their hands and faces at the bench under the wavy mirror. Sweat was pouring down Mitzi’s face. He was trying to pull himself together. In the room which served so many purposes Lena sank down in the one upholstered chair. What a hypocrite the room was! Flaunting its poverty over so much gold! What lies the little house told! Mitzi found half a bottle of wine in the out-shed and poured some into two glasses. One he passed to her. “Here, drink this, Lena. You’re all in.” Obediently she took it and began to sip the wine. She was glad Mitzi had told her to do something. This strange new person she had become wanted to be told what to do.

Mitzi drew his chair up beside hers and pulled her head, down on his shoulder. Neither spoke for some time. Then Mitzi said: “Of course you can’t go on living over all that Lena.”

“No. I shall report it. It must be opened to the public. That will not be renting it.”

“Not so fast, darling. Not so fast. It has been there for a good many centuries. A little longer won’t hurt. Let us say nothing to anyone until we know what is best to do.”

“But you promised to bring your father here, to tell him.”

“Yes. I promised that he should examine the temple.” He raised the point of her chin and kissed her weary, little mouth. “Lena, darling, you must rest for a while. Don’t worry any more about what is best to do. Leave it all to me, dear.”

The click of the gate announced Sister Teresa’s arrival. Mitzi got up and opened the door for her. The nun smiled and nodded to him as she passed in. He took his cap out of his pocket and put it on. “I’m going along, now, Lena,” he said. “I shall be over to-morrow with father.”

*  *  *

Lena did not wish to visit the temple again with Mitzi and his father. In fact she was inventing excuses for not doing so before they came. She had to help Sister Teresa to put the house in order. The chickens had to be fed. The goat-shed must be swept. She filled the lanterns and trimmed the wicks. She went down the cellar with them and clung to Mitzi for a moment before he disappeared through the door at the end of the wine-closet.

“Don’t stay too long,” she called after them. “I shall be worried to death until you return. I wish father had never dug that well. It is unlucky to find such things.”

“Don’t be foolish, Lena. We won’t stay down very long.”

Mitzi’s father had taken the news of the discovery quite calmly. “I believe there are hundreds of Megalithic tombs,” he said, “if only we could excavate.”

Mitzi led the way, deliberately passing the chamber where the gold was stored. He glanced over his shoulder to see if his father had noticed the opening. He had not. They passed into the Oracle chamber. “Isn’t it another Hypogeum?” Mitzi asked.

“Yes,” his father answered. “There is the hole where the ancient priest stood to interpret the dreams of the people who slept in those hollows and on the slabs. I shall be content with a hurried look round now, Mitzi. I must return with Professor Micalef and Doctor Gauchi. Show me where you found the urns of the Bronze Age.”

Mitzi led the way, trying to remember where he had seen the funeral vessels. What if he should take the wrong turning? He must not let——

He found the room where the skeletons lay heaped in a mound. How the skulls seemed to grin to-day. Just beyond the skeletons was the room where they had found the urns. “Here is the chamber,” he said. “Mind your head, the door is very low.”

His father bent down and examined the urns. “Yes. They are funeral jars of the Bronze Age,” he said, “and very beautiful ones. We have nothing like them in the Museum. Now, if I can find the way out I’ll report the discovery and come back with the others. Strange man, Salvatore, never to have mentioned this. What did he expect to do with a Megalithic temple? He couldn’t sell it. What does Lena think of it?”

“She has had too many shocks to know what she thinks of anything, poor girl.”

Mitzi got in front of his father to lead him out. He would stay very close and he would try to stand in front of the opening to the treasure chamber. The door was low and narrow, and if luck were with him his father would not see it. They were almost out. Just a few yards more when he heard his father say, “Wait a minute.” Before he turned his father had found the opening.

For a moment his father was stunned, dazed. Then he plunged both hands down into the gold. He clutched it and held it against his breast. He let the gold slip from one hand to the other. He sat down on the pile to feel the touch of it along his body. He was actually panting. His tongue protruded from his mouth. His lantern had rolled on to the heap of coins, but the light was still burning in it. The man of science forgot the temple of the ancient race, forgot the vessels which held the crumbling history of the Bronze Age, forgot life itself as he clutched the glittering metal of the Phoenicians.

His son watched him, hatred at his heart, hatred that flamed up like a wind-blown fire. Fiercely he saw the gold now through the eyes of his father. He heard its message. As one piece fell against the other from his father’s fingers it uttered a little laugh. It called to him. Each piece beat against his brain, taunting him, accusing him of cowardice. See your dreams vanishing, the coins seemed to say. See them fading, the palaces, the jewels, pleasure boats filled with every luxury under the sun, gliding through that warm luminous hush called the tropics, where women array themselves with ferns and flowers and soft shimmering silks. See it fading away. See them slipping past, the discoveries of new forces. The servility of slaves. Power. The power that only gold can give. He heard his voice crashing out like thunder which too suddenly follows the lightning.

“It is Phoenician money, isn’t it?”

“Yes. They were surely on the gold standard.”

What a time to be facetious! A red flame shot across his eyes. It was his gold. He would have it. The ancient temple must never be reported. He would live over it—over his gold.

Each knew what was in the mind of the other. Like a snake and a mongoose they glared at each other across the gold. A ray from the lantern which lay on the coins cast their distorted shadows on the wall like some grotesque, ancient fresco. Under Mitzi’s father the gold trembled in a rising and sinking vertigo like a miniature earthquake. Mitzi sprang through the opening and staggered over the pile of coins. His father tried to stand up, but he slipped and fell on his knees. He tried to recover his lantern but Mitzi kicked it beyond his reach. On his knees he tried to approach Mitzi. Why was Mitzi standing over him? He would drag him down. He reached out to clutch Mitzi’s knees. With a curse Mitzi raised his lantern and brought it down on his father’s head. The light went out. Only a ray from the discarded lantern lighted the cave now. Mitzi saw everything swimming into a red mist. One scream—one wild scream of pain and his father’s head fell back on Hannibal’s gold.

Mitzi stood over his father’s body. What was his father’s head doing on Hannibal’s gold? He raised his head like a broken flower on its stalk. His father was so still. He shook him. “What is it, father? What is it? Speak to me.” One moment of stark horror and Mitzi fell back senseless beside his father’s body.

*  *  *

Hours later, Lena, frightened almost to death by Mitzi’s delay, rushed to the house of Father Camelletti. Breathlessly she told the priest of her father’s secret. Told him why Salvatore had refused to rent the house. She omitted nothing. She told him of the gold stored in one of the chambers. Her tongue seemed to have wings on it. On and on it flew, telling everything from the day her father had closed up the well until she and Mitzi had passed through the door at the end of the wine-closet.

Calmly he listened and calmly he took up his hat when she had finished. “Come, daughter,” he said, “we will go down into the temple.”

They found the men on the heap of gold, one dead, the other mumbling in delirium. Lena helped the old priest to carry them up through the dark passages into the house. How she managed to carry the greater weight to ease the burden for the old priest she could never explain.

They laid the body of Mitzi’s father on Salvatore’s bed, and Sister Teresa pulled the big screen around it.

Mitzi they put on Lena’s bed. He was still now as the body of his father. Lena held one of his hands. She implored him to speak to her. “Speak to me, Mitzi. Speak to me,” she sobbed. “First my father and then your father. The place is cursed. The gold, is cursed.”

Mitzi sat up. His vacant eyes rested on the screen. Then a light came into them. He covered his face with his hands. The priest and the girl shuddered.

Presently Mitzi lay back mumbling incoherently. The priest bent over him.

“There has been an accident,” the Priest said, “a dreadful accident.”

Mitzi sat up again. He fixed his eyes on the priest with the steady stare of an eagle. His lips were compressed into a straight line. He clutched at the bed-covering as if for support.

“An accident,” he murmured. “Yes, it was an accident—a dreadful accident. He slipped—on—the—gold—and—fell. His head struck his—lantern.”

Divider

Wedding Ring

“You know I hate to do it, dear, but it’s the last thing we’ve got that we can——”

“Don’t say that word. I’ll shriek if you do.”

He bent over her. “But, Phyllis, we’ll get it back some day. It isn’t as if we’re going to sell it.” He went on about finding employment, getting back on his feet, giving her the things she should have. His voice tumbled out, hurried and thick and despairing. “Darling, I know how you’re feeling; it’s awful for you—awful.”

Pity from him was intolerable at the moment. She hated him. Surely she hated him. Pride came to her and held back her tears. She could feel the tears under her eyelids, wanting to spill. He was fumbling with the things on the table. They were falling out of his hands with little irritated clatterings. His pipe, the matchbox, a book. Yesterday he had filled his pipe with the butts left from his cigarettes. She had watched him, trying to smile—trying to make him think it amused her.

She didn’t want to look at him now. She knew his underlip was quivering. He would try to hold it steady. It was always like that—his weakness hiding behind a false bravery for shelter. He never snivelled. He was decently weak—there was that to be said. But she couldn’t go on living with him if he did it—if he pawned it. It wasn’t just pawning the ring—it was the end of everything. If she stayed she would always have to show her resentment. There would be silence between them, broken only by answers which had to be made; or by sighing; or by the vexed tapping of a foot. Little, hard clipped words would rush out at each other. There would always be her silent reprobation of him. She just couldn’t stay.

She drew her wedding ring off. It felt like tearing a plaster off the skin. “There it is, Bruce,” she said, “on the table.” She couldn’t hand it to him.

He put it in his pocket. She caught a glimpse of his eyes just then, bitten by pain, by fear. He went out, letting the door slam-to behind him. She knew he hadn’t meant to slam it, but his hands were fumbling everything. He was going to that shop again where they had pawned the candlesticks. She could see the sign over the desk where the man sat to make out the pawn tickets. “We give the highest prices for gold and silver,” it announced.

If he did it she would never speak to him again—she would—— What would she do? The tears trickled out from under her eyelids now and fell in tiny splashes on her hands—on her bare hand. How bare it looked without the ring! There was a little white line on her finger where the ring had been. She had never taken it off until to-day—not since he had put it on.

They had been so happy then! He had a job in India on a tea estate. They had left for India right after the wedding. She had been so excited she could scarcely say good-bye to her friends. All those people waving to the ship—but they had been a blur—just a blur. Happiness had got between her and them and blotted them out. . . .

Mimi, the landlady’s neglected cat, rubbed against her legs. She picked it up and stroked it. “You are getting a bit thin, Mimi,” she said. “I can feel the bones, here in your neck. I can’t give you the top of the bottle now, for there is only one bottle. When we had two—— You had that egg this morning, a glassed one to be sure, but wasn’t it good?” Remembering, Mimi put out her pink tongue in a long line and rolled it back into her pink throat. Her nose looked like a little coral button. She stroked the cat under the chin—not knowing what she was doing—not caring. Mimi purred and looked up at her with wide, yellow eyes. Mimi’s eyes were like Bimbo’s eyes. Bimbo was the tiger-cub she had had in India. He had those gold eyes that could never burn down to brown—could never simmer darkly into domesticity.

Bruce had shot Bimbo’s mother because she had come into the compound and taken a buffalo calf. Bimbo, on unsteady cub-legs, had trailed his mother into the compound. Bimbo’s gold eyes had spoken to Phyllis that day when his mother was shot. “Why can’t you love me,” they said, “as you love my domestic brothers? We are not wild. You turn us out because you are afraid, and we are obliged to hunt for food. Give us a chance.”

Bimbo had stayed. He had followed her about like a dog. Once when he had colic she had sat up all night rocking him in a chair and holding a hot-water bottle on his tummy. Bruce, in a fit of temper, had got out of bed and stormed into the room where she was sitting with the cub. The lamp he had carried had pushed her and Bimbo up on to the ceiling in a funny distorted shadow. She could see it now: her elongated features bent over two pointed ears; the rockers of the chair, so thin and tapering, coming to points, like swords. “You make me sick,” Bruce had said. “You look so damned ridiculous.” But she knew she was not ridiculous. How could anyone be ridiculous relieving pain—even an animal’s pain? Bimbo had licked her hand to express his poor little slobbering gratitude. Bruce used to be jealous of everything—at first.

When Bimbo’s mother’s skin was cured and placed on the sitting-room floor she had hoped Bimbo wouldn’t notice it. She kept the door of the sitting-room closed as much as possible. But one day she had found him sitting on his mother’s skin. There he sat, in the middle of her huge skin, his yellow eyes rolling in ecstasy. It hurt—the poignant beauty of his unconscious isolation. Nothing of his mother remained to him. She had been only a smell. Phyllis had thought then what frail things connect us with life: a smell, a sensation.

Bimbo and his mother, and her life in India were not out there in another space, remote and far away. They were here in her mind. She was inseparably one with them. And they stood for her happiness—her shining first happiness. Time was so strange out there—lengths of sunshine pleated into months, into years. Three of them. She would always have those years. Nothing could rob her of them.

She loved the bungalow which had been assigned to them. It was situated in a perfect wilderness of jungle and tea. A peepul tree brooded over it and carried you away with its movement, as you are carried away with the movement of music, of rhyme. You swayed and floated with its suggestions out over the garden, over the sea to home countries where you caught that deep dissonance which parts the East from the West. The forest-gods spoke to you as they spoke to the Indians. The storm-demon tore down the wind, laughing boisterously at his joke of frightening people. You knew he was joking. You loved the wild crashing of his music; the lights he flashed on and off from his huge battery hidden behind the grey clouds he had torn to fragments in the mock fury of his passion. Far away the sea stole into the sky. They had a secret way of meeting under a blue veil. The sea was usually bright and smiling. But sometimes it was broody and melancholy like an ocean of shed tears. It lifted you on its long, rolling waves that gathered and swelled and broke into pink foam and tossed you up on the shore of some never-never-land. Something always got at your emotions, but it left your mind free to wander.

She had had dreams for him then—misty quivering dreams at the bottom of her heart. Some day they would rise to the surface and work themselves into his life. But they never rose. And now they were buried under broken hopes. Looking down through her dreams, she couldn’t see them now. Her mother said: “When a woman finds after marriage that her husband is a fool, nothing he can do will make any difference. But when she discovers he is weak, she tries to mother him.” She had mothered Bruce. She had kept all the little troubles (they were only little ones at first) away from him. He had no intelligent fear of anything. Rather the reverse, He just drifted with one current after another. And it had been so easy to drift out there on those sweet-scented currents.

Then the slump came. It came a little later to India than to the West, but it arrived, stubborn, immovable. Most of the men were dismissed from the tea estate; Bruce among them. That night he had told her—would she ever forget it! He was standing by the window where the jasmine climbed. Behind him, it looked like a silver shiver in the moonlight. His underlip had trembled so. His hands had worked nervously with a sheet of paper: his dismissal. “We are going home,” he had said. “Read this.”

She had taken the paper out of his hands, crumpled and torn by the pressure of his fingers.

“Never mind,” she had said, “we knew we would not be out here for ever. There will be something at home.” She had really believed it when she said it. Of course there would be something at home.

They had been home four months now, and those four months had given the lie to her hopes. Bruce had walked the streets trying to find something to do; but without success. He was just one of the army of unemployed. How awful it had been going from one rooming-house to another, stared at by hard-faced landladies—just part of the floating jetsam washed here and there by the tides of adversity; trying in spite of it all to put the better foot forward—not letting your friends know too much.

Friends. It was a good thing Alice and Betty had come the night before last. If they had been coming to-night she couldn’t have faced them. She couldn’t face anybody after to-night. It had taken most of the candlestick money to get that little snack for Alice and Betty. She had made some sandwiches. Almost grudgingly she had bought a pot of meat-paste and some olives. Bruce had made chocolate, and had slopped some of it on his coat. She couldn’t get her mind off that spot on his coat to listen to what they were saying.

Going into the kitchen to have the snack felt like being squeezed into a cell. The walls crowded up, the ceiling pressed down. That awful thing in the corner—a what-not. It had journeyed to the landlady from somebody’s attic by the way of the second-hand shop. The dishes on it had accompanied it. There was a fragile white jug with a green band round it which stood on the top shelf. Somebody must have cared for it once before it lost its comrades. It had once been surrounded by cups and saucers, and a sugar bowl. Beside it a blanc-de-Chine parrot perched on a glass tree. The ornament might have been arrogant, even stately, somewhere. On the what-not it looked as ridiculous as a bow on a big dog’s neck. A basket-chair, which squeaked and cursed if you attempted the least familiarity, huddled up to the window, resting its arm on the window-sill.

Alice had taken everything in at a glance. Trust her for that. You could see calculation going on behind her eyes. Her beauty was having a renaissance. She must be forty-eight. She was at school with Aunt Mary. She managed to look about thirty-five now. Alice’s sort had to live in large cities to be beautiful—had to be near the beauty specialists and the dressmakers in order to look so sleek and well turned out. Only one woman in a thousand could dare dishevelment—never a woman over thirty.

Betty was years younger than Alice, about half her age—just a year younger than Phyllis. Everything about her suggested the fawn; her eyes, her hair, her grace. All she needed was the horns, and she had them—concealed. She slid her heavy-lidded fawn’s eyes towards Bruce as if they conveyed some secret passion. She didn’t care for Bruce, but he was male. Betty was a dear; but she went in for such yesterday stuff—making eyes at every man. That belonged to the pink chiffon days—days covered with little bits of romance—artificially, politely amorous days. We had got down to the bare bones of life now. Wouldn’t it be nice to wear a pink chiffon happiness, even if it sagged badly in the seams? But you couldn’t wear it to-day. You just couldn’t.

Alice was telling about the house her sister, Lady Cheltenham (she never let you forget her sister was Lady Cheltenham), had recently acquired in Suffolk. “It was built in King John’s time, my dear, and it has a ghost and everything complete. My sister actually saw the apparition. She was sitting up in bed. It came in a shaft of light right through the wall.” But she was thinking of that spot on Bruce’s coat. There was just about enough petrol in the bottle to clean that spot. You could put blotting-paper under a spot so it wouldn’t ring. . . . They were staring at her, wondering. “But wasn’t your sister afraid, dear?” she had managed to say. Alice had gone on about ghosts, explaining that her sister had no fear of them. Lady Cheltenham was psychic. She was glad when they left. It had been an awful strain trying to be natural.

Mimi got down off her lap. She had forgotten the cat until there was a little meow followed by Mimi’s departure. Mimi climbed into the only upholstered chair the room boasted of She had chosen it for her own now that Phyllis and Bruce occupied the rooms.

Phyllis caught a glimpse of her face in the wavy mirror over Mimi’s chair. How ashen she looked without rouge! The rouge was finished; and the powder—that was almost finished too. She was trying to make it last by using no powder under her fringe. Her hair hung over her forehead in a square fringe. Under it, her eyes were lost in dark rings of pain. Having no rouge was almost as bad as having no bread. No woman could afford to be pale to-day. But now what difference did it make—pale or not. Everything was over for her. She could pack what she had left—it wasn’t much now—in the pig-skin bag. It was a good thing the second-hand shop wouldn’t look at the bag.

Through the window the street looked like a greyish-blue hollow. It didn’t seem to contain anything. Houses stood back from it, fenced off by rows of pointed railings that bristled up from the ground in a foolish attempt at division. They were absurd in the greyish-blue hollow, dividing off unconscious houses from the unconscious street. Rain trickled into the hollow, making a little rattling sound. Windows looked like holes which had been poked in the greyness. A plane tree covered three hollows in a line, trying to obliterate some of the ugliness.

She picked up the jumper she was knitting and tugged at it with small, passionate hands. She wasn’t used to knitting. She had to knit it by the book. Knit two—purl one. How monotonous. She knitted one row across. It was too tight. It pulled. She couldn’t knit to-day. She couldn’t do anything. Had he done it yet? Had the man at the desk made out the ticket? Where did you go in London without a penny . . .?

She put the jumper down and ran her finger through the little pile of rejection slips on the table. Everything seemed to be on the table. There was no other place in the room to put things. She had tried to write stories. It would help so much if she could sell one. But she never could. They were always too something—too late to handle such a subject, the public is tired of it—too long—too short—too emotional—too restrained—too colourful—too economical—always too—too——. Such were the editors’ comments, according to a friend who tried to sell them for her. Would the critics ever admit those beauties which exist above perception, which appeal to the heart without passing by way of judgment—the need for the preference of the whole to the mere detail? The people loved the whole or they detested it. They didn’t care how it was put together if it made them feelfeel. Artistic creation was of the heart and not of the intellect. She knew. Something within you ached, and you knew because of that ache. There was that story about the lost child. It was the last she had written before they pawned the typewriter. She was sure the people would have liked that one. What a blessing they had no children! She had wanted them, at first. Imagine seeing a child hungry. It would drive you mad. The Chinese were right to kill their children when starvation threatened. No doubt they killed themselves afterwards. They would have to.

Somebody unlocked the front door. That would be Bruce coming back after—— She heard him coming up the stairs.

He came into the room. Would he be able to look at her? Would he show her the money—the blood money—what he had sold their love for—what he had sold her life for? He went over and poked the fire. He was making it worse by not talking. He was spinning out the misery of it. How long would he keep it up? She had nothing to measure time by. She had only sensations that tortured. Her mind and her body seemed to be one pain. Despair rose up round her. She sank into it, deeper, deeper.

Twilight had come to the window now, and a street light shone mistily through the grey-like something that glittered under water. The light coming through the window was meanly picking out the shabbiness of the room as a winter wave tosses up wreckage.

He was standing before her holding out his hand. She wouldn’t look. He wanted her to see how much he had got for the ring—he held the end of everything in his hand. But she must look. She would have to know. It would kill her. But it would be better than having him tell her. She looked.

There was the ring. He had bought it back. She heard a voice that didn’t sound a bit like hers say “thank God.” Then her face was tilted backwards under his. She felt the pressure of his lips on hers. She closed her eyelids and held them down firmly. She would shut him out in case she might see fear in his eyes. There was nothing to fear now. If she could only make him understand there was nothing to fear now. They came apart and she opened her eyes. He lifted her hand and put the ring back on, her finger—back over the little white circle it had made for itself. His mouth was twitching. He was making a desperate effort to control it. “I don’t know what in blazes we are going to do now, dear,” he said.

She held up the finger with the ring on it. Her eyes glowed. Then her arms went round his neck. Her cheek was against his. She was murmuring into his collar, “Can’t you see, darling, that nothing else matters? Can’t you see?”

Divider

Oil

Someone was knocking on the door. Cynthia heard the Ayah open the door and say: “I’ll take the parcel for the Miss Sahib.”

“But she must sign for it,” she heard the guttural voice of the Arab servant protesting.

A little knock on the door of her dressing-room and the Ayah came in. “Miss Sahib, will you sign for this please?” she asked, as she put a little box covered with seals on the dressing-table in front of Cynthia.

The Ayah took the slip of paper to the waiting Arab, but she was back in the room almost at once, her eyes big with curiosity.

Cynthia cut the string with her manicure scissors. The seals were mostly caught on the string. As she unwound it they crumbled and fell on the floor in little red flakes. There was a letter tucked in under the string. She opened the letter first.

“Please wear them [the letter began] they have been in my family for almost a century. But they have never before touched a skin which they resemble.

“May I bring Jemal Bey to tea with us this afternoon? He is interesting. He was a Turkish staff officer during the last world war. Then he served as Minister of the Interior in Persia under the Shah. Now he is the final word on the oil concessions which certain companies are trying to get in the Iraq. If I do not hear from you I shall take it that he is welcome. Until this afternoon, dear.

Thabit.”

She opened the box and took out a string of pink pearls. As she dangled them from her fingers the Ayah kept uttering exclamations of delight and astonishment. “Beautiful, aren’t they?” Cynthia said. The Ayah’s answer was a little gurgle.

Cynthia slipped them over her head and stood in front of the long mirror. She studied her reflection and laughed. A Japanese kimono, rumpled and not too new, was scarcely the costume to show up pearls to the best advantage. How soft and velvety they felt, like a baby’s skin. And they were large, too, and so beautifully matched. She took them off and took them over to the window to hold them up against the light. She knew something about jewels. Her eyes held the look of the appraiser now. Ancient Red Sea pearls, she was thinking. Such pearls are not found any more. For a moment she caressed them, and then she put them down on the dresser. A tiny sigh parted her lips.

The Ayah kept moving about the room, apparently tidying up, but really staring at the pearls. She couldn’t handle them while Cynthia was in the room. You took no liberties with the Miss Sahib. But she was kind; so different from the last Memsahib she had travelled with. That one was not above flavouring her curt orders with profanity. This Miss Sahib was considerate. She never asked you to stay up all hours of the night waiting for her to come in, or to mend and iron all day long.

Cynthia had engaged the Ayah in Bombay while she waited for the boat on which they crossed the Persian Gulf to Basrah. From Basrah they had come by train to Baghdad, just stopping long enough to catch a glimpse of the Garden of Eden.

“Please get out that pink georgette set,” Cynthia said, “and the white frock with the cream lace. I don’t want to wear any of my coloured frocks in this hot sun. They would be faded in no time.”

She sat down again before the dressing-table and took the wave-setting combs out of her hair. It had been bobbed, but she was letting it grow now. The ends of it curled under where it rested on her shoulders. Thank God, it hasn’t to be touched up, she thought. Her eyes were large and brown. Just now calculation lurked in them. But they could be soft and melting.

She passed a lipstick over her upper lip. Her lower lip was always a deeper colour than her upper lip, so she never bothered to outline it with the lipstick.

She opened Thabit’s letter again and read the words over: “Please wear them.” He hadn’t said please accept them. Last night he had asked her to marry him. She had told him that she must think it over. She was grateful to him for not getting mushy. He hadn’t even attempted to kiss her. Had he sensed that she hadn’t wanted him to kiss her? There was something pathetic about him. He wouldn’t hurry her decision for fear he might frighten her and send her away from him.

She laughed as her mind moved over that thought. But a moment later there were tears in her eyes. Poor Thabit! He deserved to have some woman love him. He spoke of the pearls being in his family for almost a century. Had he meant to imply that they must remain in his family, or was it his quaint Arab way of putting things? He wasn’t all Arab. His mother was French. Baghdad knew of the French woman who had eloped with the young Arab when he was a student in Paris. He had brought her to Baghdad and soon after Thabit was born she had died or returned to her people. Baghdad was not quite sure which, and Thabit never mentioned his mother. He had been brought up in the Arab way by his father’s family. His face and head reminded you of the French mother, but he had the slender, graceful physique of the Arab.

Cynthia put the pearls back in the box. She would thank him for them. Later she would return them. In the meantime she would keep them in her trunk, explaining to him that she would have to get used to wearing such valuable jewels. Could she have loved him if . . . She brought her lips into a firm straight line and looked accusingly at her reflection in the mirror.

She got up from the dressing-table and dressed quickly. The white frock was very becoming. She knotted a scarf, batiked in green and yellow, around her neck and put on a large green shade hat. She hated topees. She told Thabit she would almost rather have a touch of the sun than wear one.

She went downstairs. It was nearly tiffin time. In the dining-room the boys were laying the tables. The vases of hybisci on the tables looked like tiny flames in the darkened room. The place was deserted: only two men were in the lounge. They were drinking gin aperitifs. They looked like tourists.

Below the window was the Tigris, sluggish and slow. Few boats were on it. Three or four were moored to the other shore near the Hotel Babylon. She thought of the sign she had seen in the Babylon. “Men are requested to dance with ladies.” That sign had caused Thabit to speak his mind to the Sudanese proprietor.

Lunch was a quiet affair. There were only the two men who had been drinking aperitifs and three Arabs in the dining-room. The meal was uninteresting. A curry with a vile sauce, a salad of cooked vegetables and a tasteless ice. Why couldn’t the Syrian and Iraquian Arabs cook as the Egyptian Arabs did? Sometimes the food in the Baghdad homes was edible: never in the hotels. Tea would be better. The boys tried to please Thabit Bey by having special cakes at tea-time. She was living on teas since she had come to Baghdad; teas, and dinners she had at Thabit’s, and at the homes of his friends.

She found a fly in the rice, so she pushed the curry away. She didn’t want the salad or the ice. She got up and left the dining-room. What difference did it make? It was too hot to eat.

At the desk she asked for a gharrie. She would drive down to the bazaars and see if there was anything worth buying.

The city looked deserted. Most of the foreign population went to bed after lunch and made up for it by getting up early in the morning, usually to ride before breakfast. Thabit had offered her a horse. She had not accepted it. She had told him she didn’t know how to ride. That was not true. But she knew it would mean riding with him. She would cause no more gossip than was necessary. There was enough being said already which she could not control. Baghdad, like all places having a small European population, knew everything about you before it happened.

The streets were hot and dusty. Only the sellers could be seen, and they buzzed around like so many flies. The boys who made the long white cigarettes were everywhere. She called one over to the gharrie and bought a packet. She found a match in her purse and lighted one. It tasted musty; as if it were made of dead leaves. She threw it away. A street urchin picked it up and stuck it in his mouth.

In the bazaar pieces of carpet and palm-thatch were stretched across the narrow streets. It was dark and cool under their shelter. The place reeked of stale vegetables and fruits, and to accent the odour of rotting things, cheap perfumes added their disgusting contributions. Some of the sellers were sleeping on their wares. One slept on a pile of dates which he would later measure out for the purchasers.

She found nothing worth buying but a little brass pot of kohl for the eyes. She didn’t want the kohl, but the container was so artistic.

She went back to the hotel, deciding to lie down until teatime. There was nothing else to do. What a cemetery the place was! How could the Europeans stick it year in and year out? She would darken her room, leaving just enough light to read by. Thabit had given her the history of Iraq. She would read that.

*  *  *

About five she got up, tidied her hair, and changed into a black georgette frock with a lace collar. She passed the lipstick over her lip again, and put a little rouge on her cheeks and on the very point of her chin. She went down to the lounge. Thabit Bey and the man he had asked permission to bring were sitting at a table. They were drinking the sweet, syrupy things which Orientals are for ever pouring down their throats. As they rose she was struck by the difference in their appearance. Thabit’s skin looked fair by comparison. His clothes were faultless. The fez, which he wore instead of the topee of the European, was thrown on a chair. His hair went back from his forehead in loose waves: His fine, dark eyes glowed, dreamed and pleaded. The ex-Minister of the Interior was short and heavy. He had the soft body which indulgence frequently moulds for the Easterner. His face was puffy. His mouth was sensual and drooping. His eyes had sacks under them. They looked inflamed. She saw the gloating look come into them with which certain of his race confront white skin.

Thabit introduced him. “This is Jemal Bey, Miss Conway.” Cynthia felt her hand clasped by something very moist and boneless. Jemal Bey, true to Arab form, did not remove his tarboosh.

When they sat down Cynthia said to him: “Men who occupy big positions always frighten me. They seem so important and far away.”

Flattery was the breath of life to him. “We are not so far away from . . . situations we wish to approach,” he said. He looked at Thabit. Thabit’s eyes were on Cynthia. He took courage and went on. “Our importance is not regulated by our own estimation, but by positions the Government allows us to occupy.”

“Thabit tells me you are the last word in the oil concessions,” she said. “I think you are quite right to keep your oil away from grasping countries, mine for example.” She laughed and poured out the tea.

“Madam, you joke about your country,” he said. “Here, in the Iraq, we love England.”

“We love some of the English,” Thabit said.

“It is not because we do not wish to share our oil,” Jemal Bey said, “but because our Fellah have many superstitions about the land. You know superstition dies hard.”

“I have heard a lot about the fanaticism here,” she said, “but I have seen nothing of it.”

“We use it when we wish to,” Thabit said.

“That’s not right,” Jemal Bey said with heat. “You know we are fanatical.”

Thabit shrugged his shoulders.

“When you were a Turkish officer,” Cynthia smiled into the eyes of Jemal Bey, “your business was to hate us.”

“My business, yes. War is a business.”

“Jemal’s place is full of beautiful things he has collected from all over the world,” Thabit said.

“I suppose he shows them to people sometimes?” Her eyes questioned Jemal Bey.

“Sometimes,” he said.

They talked of a journey which Thabit was soon to make, down into the desert near the Persian border. Cynthia listened. She filled the cups and passed the cakes.

“Have you picked the men you are to take with you?” Jemal Bey asked.

Thabit nodded.

“We are going to give you a special train,” the oil controller continued, “better have the men get on at Ramleh.”

A boy came to the table and told Thabit that a gentleman wanted to speak to him in the writing-room.

When he had gone, Jemal Bey put his hand over Cynthia’s. His saggy eyes were staring directly into her astonished ones. “Would you like to see the things I have collected?” he asked.

“I would love to,” she answered. “Is it possible?” She tried to look as wicked as she could. She hoped she was being successful.

“To-morrow night at ten I shall send my car for you,” he said. “My man will bring you down to my palace. It is near the Mosque with the golden minarets.”

Thabit came back. The conversation turned to games, the races, the two cinema shows which were in town at the moment. When they left Thabit whispered to her that he would be back to take her out to dinner.

*  *  *

In a long green frock with a little silver-net jacket, she met Thabit in the lounge. She could hear whispered comments as they passed out to the car. She wondered if Thabit had heard. His face was inscrutable. “I have a surprise for you to-night,” he said when they were seated in the car.

“What is it?” Her voice was eager.

“Dinner on my boat. She is moored on the other side about three miles up.”

“How big is she?”

“About the size of a Nile dahabieh.”

“Oh, she is that big green boat we have seen when we have been out in the motor launch.”

“Yes.”

“And you never told me.”

“I was planning a surprise for you. I have had her done up. She is very comfortable now. She would be much cooler than the hotel. Won’t you live on her? I will give you my servants.”

“How lovely of you, dear,” she said. She was thinking, how Oriental. He would get her where he knew what she was doing every moment: where his servants could spy on her all hours of the day and night.

They were crossing the bridge. “This is our new bridge,” he said. “There was a pontoon bridge here before. You could feel all the loose sections when you rode across it. They rattled frightfully under the car.”

“You don’t seem to get anything here until it is absolutely necessary,” she said.

“The country is very poor.”

“It needn’t be,” she said. “All you have to do is to irrigate with your two great rivers and then you would have a country more fertile than Egypt.”

He laughed. “Darling, don’t worry about countries and irrigation. Love is the only thing that counts in life.”

They drove into a grove of palm trees and stopped. From the grove a narrow pier ran down to the river. It was lighted by chains of electric lights. Servants were standing at the foot of a carpeted stairway which was let down from the boat. No one would think of calling it a gangway, Cynthia thought as she mounted it. Other servants were on the deck. There seemed to be dozens of them. Their galabiehs were made of heavy white silk. They wore green sashes, red turned-up slippers and red tarbooshes with tassels tucked under the bands. The deck was covered with Persian mats. Lamps on chains threw soft lights through shades like lotus buds.

Thabit led the way into the saloon which covered more than half the main deck. Cynthia had seen Oriental display in the homes of Indian Rajahs and in the houses of Taipans in China. Rich men of Egypt had tried to dazzle her with their extravagance; but never in her life had she seen such reckless extravagance, such an utter riot of luxury.

“Has Haroun el Rashid returned to Baghdad?” she asked. “I doubt if he could have done anything like this in the old days.”

“Do you like it?” he asked.

“I don’t know yet. I’m wondering.”

A fountain in the centre of the room trickled water over marble and alabaster figures in various attitudes of love. Light under the statues made their stone look like flesh. The water fell into a huge silver basin where brilliantly-coloured fish were swimming about under long spotted leaves and red flowers. The flowers looked like smirches of blood. Divans stood about under canopies of some silken fabric. The legs of the divans emerged from the purple velvet which draped them, like slender feet under a long frock. The ceiling was covered with purple silk shirred into a pattern. Painted on the walls were figures evidently illustrating a Persian love song. Cushions of all shapes and sizes made of silver and gold tapestry were thrown on the floor or stacked in piles against the wall.

She knew that Eastern men tried to startle women. No doubt they had their reasons. Perhaps it made women more pliant, less defensive. She wondered if Thabit had anything like that in mind when he had the boat done up. Had he done it to impress her with his wealth?

If his idea had been to impress her he had accomplished it, for she was so taken up with the decorations she did not realize that he had left her. What would it be like to live in such a room, she wondered, with its splendour which wouldn’t retreat for a moment and leave you in peace?

Two servants brought in a table and placed it near the fountain. They put a cover on it which shimmered like silk. She sat on one of the divans and watched their preparations. They brought in a silver bowl filled with flowers and put it in the centre of the table. They were bringing in cutlery and glasses and arranging two places. What a number of glasses! She thought of the wines which would tone with the other luxury.

A third servant came in and slid back one of the Persian wall paintings. Thabit stepped out from it dressed in Eastern costume. Was that Thabit—that gorgeous figure in the purple silk cuftan with the jewels of the old Order of Mejedieh? On his head was a purple tayieh braided with gold.

He came over to Cynthia and touched his forehead with the fingers of his right hand. “Come to dinner, darling,” he said. He placed a chair for her and clapped his hands. A servant came in with a slender silver jug. He poured its contents into two of the glasses. “It is a Turkish aperitif made of rose petals,” Thabit said. He raised his glass with a little salute. She sipped the wine. It tasted like perfume. She knew if she were going to get it down, she must swallow it quickly. “I don’t drink perfume as a rule,” she said. He laughed and told her how it was made. “Why do you have so many Turkish things?” she asked.

“The Turks were here for six centuries,” he answered. “It takes time to get over their ways. Your countrymen were here but a few years. Patience, my dear. We are getting accustomed to whisky and soda.”

“I hope Jemal Bey didn’t mind my referring to him as a Turkish officer,” she said.

“No, indeed. Anyone can see he is more Turkish than anything else.”

The servants brought in soup and several dishes of steaming mixtures. They were all too highly seasoned for Cynthia. The dinner to-night was truly Eastern. He had always served European dishes at his house. To-night everything was different. Why? she wondered.

He was very quiet. He stared at her with blazing eyes. She felt the tension which precedes a storm, but she knew the storm would not break. How he must ache from holding back his feelings. He would do nothing to hurry her, for that might lose him his case. He had made up his mind to marry her. If it were necessary to play a waiting game he would play it. What would it be like to be married to him year after year? she wondered. The Koran would allow him other wives. Somehow she felt that he would not take them. Other men had married women of different races. There was nothing unique about it. How handsome he was in his Oriental costume! She could love him if . . . He was so tender and considerate. She had heard such awful stories of Eastern passion. She could feel his eyes on her. Their burning gaze made little hot streaks along her body. She must pull herself together. It would never do to . . .

She ate some of the rice and chicken dish and a dish made of small birds. A tiny lamb was brought in on a silver platter. It had been roasted whole, with tail complete, in the Arab manner. They barely touched it. Turkish sweetmeats came next, made of violets and roses, then sherbet, without which no Arab dinner can finish. The servants had been pouring wines of various colours into the glasses during the meal. Champagne came in with the sherbet. Again he raised his glass to her as he had done at the beginning of the meal. “Shall we have coffee on deck, darling?” he asked.

They went on deck. A servant brought them coffee in two small copper cups. He put a bottle of Greek brandy and two tiny glasses beside the cups. Then he stood before his master and saluted. “Allah yahfazak” [God keep you], Thabit murmured. She watched the servants descend the stairs to the pier. She knew that one remained somewhere on the boat: his old watchman.

Thabit filled the glasses with brandy. She drank the brandy. She felt a warm glow inside, but her head was clear. He drank his coffee in one gulp. Then he sipped the brandy. When he had finished he went over to the railing. The gold embroidery of his tayieh glittered in the moonlight. The river was silent. There was no craft anywhere. Some boys were singing on the other shore and beating the tom toms.

She thought of old Babylon. It had stood in all its splendour up the river. Where was its glory to-day? A few bits of stone in a museum. What did anything amount to? No matter what heights things reached they couldn’t stay there. Life was a farce. The end was the same. Why take it seriously?’ She would drift with the Eastern tide. What became of her would make no difference. Character. Honour. There had been character and honour in old Babylon mixed in somewhere with the chaos. Where were they now? Not with the relics in the old museum. Down in the centre of her something quivered. She told it to be still, but it went on quivering.

She went over and stood beside him at the rail. She put her hand over his. How hot it felt. “Come and show me the rest of the boat,” she said. He turned and looked at her. He seemed to be coming out of a dream. “Yes, dear. Come and see it,” he said. He led the way back through the saloon and slid open one of the painted panels. It disclosed a cabin furnished in every shade of blue: soft blue carpets on the floor, blue silk brocades on the walls, framed into long panels by narrow silver moulding. A blue dressing-table with a mirror which reached to the floor and drawers on either side with silver handles. A small blue writing-desk with a silver lamp on it stood in the corner. The bed was a wide divan, draped in blue silk and covered with cushions. A mosquito net, which depended from a silver ring in the ceiling, was tucked in behind the curtains.

“It is a cabin for an hareem favourite,” she said.

“It’s for my friends,” he said. “I wish you would accept the boat and occupy it.” She did not speak. Instead he heard a little sigh. He wondered what she was thinking. They crossed the saloon again and he slid another panel. “This is my cabin,” he said. It was a man’s cabin furnished with a man’s daily necessities.

“What a let-down after the rest of the boat,” she said. “Is there anything more?”

“Only this,” he said. One more panel went back. She looked in.

“But what is it?” she asked, seeing there was nothing but a mat on the floor. The room had no furniture.

“It is my prayer mat,” he said.

“Oh!” She turned back into the saloon and dropped down on one of the divans.

She was thinking of prayer at sunrise after love; prayer at sundown before nights which blazed with passion. Was the Arab prayer as fervent as the Arab passion? Was Allah besieged by the force which beat against the body?

He came and knelt down beside her. He took her hand and kissed it. “Darling,” he said, “are you ready to give me an answer? You know I love you, and I will love you, only you, in the same way while there is breath in my body.” She put her hand on his head and caressed his hair. There were tears in her eyes. She blinked her eyelids very fast to keep them from falling. She looked up at the light. She could see long rays trailing from it through mist. When she could see it clearly she would know that the tears were not standing in her eyes. She hoped he hadn’t noticed the tears. She pitied him and hated herself. If he only knew how she could . . . In other circumstances . . .

“Darling,” she said. “I must get used to the idea of it. I must get it all straight in my own mind. Our lives have been so different. Our training has been as opposite as the poles. I can’t . . . All in a moment.” . . . She felt the tears coming back. She must hurry into more excuses. Desperately, she said: “There would be secrets always. There are secrets now.”

He rose, and stood looking down at her. “Now, now, my beloved. What do you mean?” Through her lashes she could see his hands trembling.

How could she go on? “There is a private mission to the south,” she said. “A special train will take you and certain men. You and Jemal Bey talked of it right over my head at the tea table. There will be other such journeys and I shall be treated like a child.”

He laughed, and dropped down beside her.

“Darling one, would you care to go with me on that mission?”

Relief rushed out of his voice with every word.

“Of course, I want to go with you,” she said. “Will you take me?”

“I would take you to the ends of the earth if it would please you. But the mission, as you call it, is only a trip to the oil wells on the Persian border.”

She flung her arms about his neck and kissed him. “Don’t take me, darling,” she said. “You mustn’t take me. I don’t want to go. I won’t go.” Her head went down on his shoulder and she began to sob.

“But, darling, do come if you would like to,” he said. His arms held her tightly.

“I must come,” he heard her murmur. How strangely she was acting. She moved away from him; There was a hurt look in his eyes. He couldn’t understand her. Perhaps she had been listening to a lot of stories about the infidelity of his countrymen. So many of the stories had no foundation. He often wondered how they got bandied about from one to another.

He told her the journey would be very tiresome, right across the desert in the glaring sun. The train would be hot and stuffy. “But be sure I shall do all I can to make you comfortable,” he said. “When you see how tame and uninteresting that ‘mission’ is and any other business journeys you care to take with me, perhaps you will give me the answer which will make me the happiest man in the world.”

“I shall give you the answer soon, dear,” she said, “very soon.” Her voice was shaky.

“Won’t you live on the boat while you are deciding?” he asked.

“Darling, I would rather not,” she said. “You know how people talk.”

“I’m afraid I had forgotten the wagging tongues,” he said. “I was thinking only that you would be much cooler here. At night there’s always a breeze on the river.”

They sat on the deck for a while watching the stars. He told her about the desert: its tribes, its feuds, its peace, its voice which always called you back if you had once heard it.. She listened, wishing that she had heard it, that it was calling her back.

It was not late when they returned to the hotel. He stopped a moment in the lounge to tell her of the arrangement he would make for their journey. Several men were sitting at the tables. She heard their whispered comments again as she passed along to the stairs.

*  *  *

The next night at ten o’clock she waited for Jemal Bey’s man. She wore a white dress trimmed with rhinestones. She had thrown a black velvet cape over her shoulders. Her face was rouged more than usual, her eyes were darkened with the kohl she had bought in the bazaar. A man in uniform came into the lounge and saluted.

“Miss Conway,” he said, inquiringly.

“Yes,” she answered.

“The car is waiting,” he said.

She followed him out.

He took the road towards the King’s Palace. It was full of people standing about in noisy groups. How they chatted, these people! The city looked vague and remote as the mountains of the moon. It seemed to have thrown the people out and was slipping away from them into the darkness. Only the statues on the gate-posts stood out; The car turned into the street which led to the Mosque with the golden minarets. It stopped before an iron gate. A man opened the gate and helped her out of the car. It was Jemal Bey.

“Madam,” he said, “I am afraid it will be impossible to show you my collection. My son is very ill and all inside is confusion. Let us go into the orange-grove.” Without waiting for an answer, he led the way through the garden. The perfume of orange blossoms and jasmine was overpowering. At the end of the garden a gate gave on the orange-grove.

There was a small pavilion in the centre of the grove. They went into it and sat down. The moon came out from behind a cloud and lighted up the grove and garden. The night was moist; filled with the rhythm of things growing. On the table the moonlight disclosed a tray with two glasses turned upside down. A bottle stood beside it. He poured something into the glasses and passed one to her. “A very old wine, madame,” he said, “it is Turkish.”

What was the mystery? Why had he refused to take her into the house? Not because his wife was inside. No Arab consults his wife about his friends. Perhaps there was someone in the house whom he didn’t want her to meet. Suppose it was Thabit. She smiled at the thought of the drama of such a situation.

“I am sorry your son is ill,” she said. “Perhaps I’d better not stay.”

“On the contrary, if you don’t mind being out here in the garden I shall be charmed if you remain.”

Silly old fool, she thought. He’ll talk all sorts of nonsense unless I place the conversation at once where it can’t lead up to anything. “Yesterday you told me that the Fellahin are very superstitious,” she said. “I take it the Arabs have no superstitions about the moonlight; such as the Italians have, for example.”

“You mean about sitting in the moonlight?”

“Yes.”

“My people have no superstitions of that sort,” he said. “Their fears are concerned with the earth. Digging in the earth releases the spirits which play havoc with them.”

“Can’t they be taught by their priests that such ideas are absurd?”

“Perhaps they are not so absurd. A few fears are good for ignorant people; hold them in check.”

He came and sat beside her.

“You said that the Fellah would not sell their land to the oil companies,” she continued. “I suppose it is because of their fear of the spirits.”

“Yes, that is it,” he said.

“Even if they are not afraid of spirits,” she said. “I see no reason why they should sell their lands to the oil companies.”

He tried to put his arm round her. She moved away.

“Madame and I are of the same opinion,” he said. “We can work our own country. We can use our own oil, and if not we can at least export it ourselves.”

“You could not export it without money to buy ships,” she said.

“Soon we shall have the money for ships. We have a few ships now.”

“Have you? I suppose you have Aladdin’s lamp hidden somewhere and you rub it and make a wish when you want something.”

“We rub something more substantial than that, he said. He caught her hand and kissed it. “What is that jewel you are wearing?” he asked.

“It’s nothing,” she answered. “Just a little ornament which seems to go well with this frock.”

She wondered if Thabit had mentioned the pearls to him. She was almost sure he hadn’t.

“Do you like jewels?” he asked.

“Yes, I love them,” she said.

He took a small box out of his pocket and held up a pendant which shone and sparkled in the moonlight. It looked like large diamonds surrounding a sapphire.

“What a beautiful thing,” she said. He slipped it over her head and took her in his arms. His fat body pressed against her. He tried to kiss her, but she dodged his lips and managed to struggle free. “How fast you travel!” she said.

“I love you. I love you,” he spluttered. He was coming at her again.

She waited until he was almost up to her, then she stepped aside quickly. He was getting out of breath. She would tire him out and then he would become irritable and explode. For about ten minutes she dodged him round the pavilion. Finally he sat down, puffing like an engine.

“Why did you come here?” he asked.

“Because you asked me to come and see your collection of curios,” she answered.

“You knew what I meant.”

I thought you meant just what you said. I’m going now.”

“You can’t go now. I sent the car away for an hour. It’s not back yet.”

She laughed a little at the time limit.

“I can walk,” she said. “It’s a lovely night.”

“Sit down and be reasonable,” he said.

“Then you be reasonable too,” she said.

She sat down again. There was silence for a while between them, then she began to compliment him. He was a good loser. Few men could lose as he did without getting nasty. He started to boast. When he was nicely launched he couldn’t stop. His throaty voice, heavy with suppressed emotion, went on and on. He told her about his work, his hopes, his dreams. How he held the Government in his hands. That was the lamp he rubbed.

Finally they heard the car stop in the road. “Don’t come,” she said. She had gone before he could stop her. He felt exhausted. Let her go, he thought, he wouldn’t follow her.

Back in her room at the hotel she held the pendant under her reading-lamp. She threw back her head and laughed. It wasn’t a bad imitation, especially in the moonlight. The orange-grove was just the place to present it.

*  *  *

She was waiting with Thabit for the special train which was to take them on the southern mission. They would get on at the main station. The men who were to accompany them would join them later at a siding. Thabit had something on his mind. He looked worried and tired.

“It will be a dirty, hot trip, dear,” he said.

“I don’t care,” she said. “I have always wanted to go right into the desert.”

The train rolled up to the station. It had two long carriages and a diner. The curtains were drawn across the windows.

There would be a blinding glare all the way. He made her as comfortable as he could with the cushions and covers his servant had brought. The train started. She took off her hat and stretched out on a sofa. It was insufferably hot. Thabit went into the next car. The servant brought her a lemon squash. She sat up to sip it through a straw. Thabit came back and stretched out on another sofa.

“Where do the men get on?” she asked.

“About fifteen miles from here,” he replied.

“When do we get to the border?”

“Just after tiffin, the hottest part of the day. Darling, you shouldn’t have come. We shall be there about two hours.”

“Don’t worry, dear. I have always wanted to see an oil well in action. It thrills me the very thought of it. Can we get back in time for dinner?”

“Yes, he said, “or soon after.”

She finished the squash. Some flies were buzzing about. Their droning made the heat seem more intense.

“Tell me something about Jemal Bey,” she said.

“He’s a sly old dog. Knows how to manage the labour here better than any man in the country. He can make the Fellah work, or he can stop them from working, just as he likes.”

“I don’t see why he should stop them from working.”

“Foreigners who come here trying to get concessions from the Government must have labour or they can do nothing.”

“So by withholding the labour you can keep foreigners out.” On that he made no comment.

The heat was making her drowsy. Presently she slept. The train stopped and the men boarded it, but still she dozed. For a moment Thabit stood over her beauty, silently admiring it; then he went into the other car to write letters.

It was tiffin time when he wakened her. She stood up, her eyes full of sleep. She washed her face and hands with water from the ice jug. She didn’t want to eat. She played with the inevitable curry and salade until they were removed. She ate the ice-cream and drank another lemon squash. Thabit was eating very little.

Before they had finished tiffin the train stopped. A motor-car was waiting. She put on a topee belonging to Thabit. She had brought a veil and a parasol.

“How far is it from here?” she asked.

“About five miles. The railway can’t go too near the wells.” They spoke very little during the rest of the journey. Three men were in the car with them. She could see the wells straight across the desert. She wondered if the eye had the same range on the desert as it had on the sea.

When they arrived at the wells she saw there were two buildings. One was for the workmen and the other was a refinery. About five hundred camels stood under a shelter covered with date-palm thatch. Oil tins were thrown about in every direction.

A tall, angular man came out of the refinery. He was very fair, with a round face and protruding eyes. Thabit introduced him. “May I present Mr. Schwartz, Miss Conway?”

Mr. Schwartz said something about their trip down. Was it stifling? Did they have any ice on the train? He spoke with a German accent.

Thabit told her there was room in the refinery where she could wait if she could stand the smell of the petrol. He had some business to discuss with Mr. Schwartz.

“Never mind me,” she said. “I want to walk about and stretch my legs. Perhaps I shall go for a camel ride.”

“You wouldn’t find it very comfortable on an oil camel,” Mr. Schwartz said. He wondered how this girl happened to be travelling with Thabit.

“Good-bye,” she said. She knew Thabit wouldn’t move until she did something definite. She saw him go into the refinery with Mr. Schwartz. She walked along, wondering where the Iraq finished and where Persia began. She saw a rock with some Arabic characters on it. A Fellah was standing near. She pointed to the other side of the rock.

“Persia?” she asked him.

He nodded in the affirmative.

She passed the rock into Persia. She heard a strange rumbling noise under the ground as if some subterranean river flowed just below where she stood. Oil does not flow along, she thought. It gushes up from the ground. She retraced her steps and walked back into the Iraq. The land sloped slightly. Again she stepped over into Persia. The ground sloped only where the rumbling sounded. She sat down on the rock. It would have burned her had her mind not been so occupied. She saw the land was made to slope over the rumble. She had no idea how long she sat on the rock.

She heard Thabit calling her. She hurried back.

“It didn’t take me nearly so long as I expected,” he said. “Schwartz had things ready for me. I hope you were not too bored.”

“I wasn’t bored at all. The desert is very interesting.”

They got into the car. The men they had brought down were remaining. Mr. Schwartz came out to the car and shook hands with them.

“Where do the camels carry the oil?” she asked him.

“Down to the boats in the Persian Gulf,” he said.

When they were again on the train Thabit asked permission to leave her while he did some writing. He went into the other car. She washed off some of the desert dust and sat down by the window. The country was flat and monotonous. She didn’t notice it. Her thoughts were racing ahead of the train. So engrossed was she with them that she didn’t realize that Thabit had returned and was standing beside her. His voice startled her.

“My dear, you look very tired,” he said.

“Yes, dear, I believe I am tired,” she said. “I shall go to bed early to-night. My Ayah can bring dinner up to my room.”

“That’s a good idea,” he said. “These dusty journeys are frightfully exhausting.”

“Who is Mr. Schwartz?” she asked.

“He is a German, a surveyor who used to work for the English in Persia.”

“Why did he leave them?”

“I don’t know. It is of no importance. He has turned out to be a very good man for us.”

The train stopped at the siding where it had stopped in the morning. A little later they arrived at the main station.

Thabit drove her to the hotel. “I’ll not come in, dear,” he said as he kissed her hand. “May I come to-morrow, at teatime?”

“Do you mind if I phone you or send you a chit? I am not sure if I have promised to do anything to-morrow afternoon.”

“All right, dear. Then I shall hear from you later.” He got into the car again and drove away. If he had turned round to wave to her he would have seen her eyes filled with tears. They fell on the hand he had kissed. She bit her lips. She was trembling violently.

“Steady on,” she told herself. “Steady on.” She went into the office of the hotel.

“I believe the Imperial Airways leaves at six in the morning,” she said to the clerk.

“Yes, madam. The plane arrives in Cairo in twelve hours. Are you leaving?”

“Yes. Please send my bill up to my room, and engage places for me and my Ayah on the plane.”

Upstairs, she told the Ayah to pack. “We shall fly to Cairo,” she said. “We leave at six in the morning. From Cairo I shall send you to Port Said where you can get a boat to Bombay.”

“Yes, Miss Sahib,” the Ayah said. She was sorry to leave Cynthia; but she would see her two children and perhaps she could find some work in Bombay so she wouldn’t have to leave them again.

Cynthia took the pearls out of the trunk and tied them up again in the little box. It was she who slipped a letter under the string this time. “My answer must be no,” the letter said. “Try to forgive me for everything if you can. I believed there was such a thing as duty. Now I know there is only love. The knowledge comes too late . . . Oh, my dear——”

Tears blotted the last words. Her head dropped down on the desk and she wept as if she would never stop. The Ayah looked on, but she could think of nothing to say. Quietly she tiptoed out.

It seemed hours later when Cynthia got up and washed her eyes. A few tiny sobs escaped, but they were growing less. She sent the Ayah to the hotel manager with the little box. She told the woman to tell him to give it to Thabit the next time he called. Then she sat down at her desk again and wrote:

Mr. Jeffrey Pemberton,

Dear Sir,

My work here is finished. To-morrow I leave by air for Cairo. I shall post this in Cairo. My report is as follows:

Your company is being robbed by a native company of the Iraq, directed by one, Jemal Bey. The robbery can be traced from the 108th boundary stone between Iran and the Iraq, on the limits of your concession. A pipe has been laid and the land has been sloped to carry the oil from Iran to the Iraq. This was the idea of a German by the name of Schwartz, who was discharged from your company. You will be able to obtain a concession on this side, but you will find it difficult to obtain labour, as this same Jemal Bey, working through the Ulema and the priests, appeals to the fanaticism of the natives when he would prevent foreigners from obtaining labour.”

Yours obediently, C.C..

She walked to the window and looked down at the river. The sun was setting behind the palm trees on the other shore. Just at this moment a man would be kneeling on his prayer mat—his face towards Mecca.

Divider

The Pathan

“Major Keene, Major Keene, do come at once. There’s a cobra in my bathroom.” Hastily tying the cord of the lounging robe, which he had thrown over his pyjamas, Major Keene came out on the verandah. His red hair bristled up from his rather prominent forehead and his eyes were staring. They always stared or squinted when the Major was not wearing his spectacles.

“What did you say, Mrs. Marsh?” he asked breathlessly.

“There’s a cobra in my bathroom. Evidently came in through the drain.”

“God Almighty! I’ll get my stick.”

“Not your stick, Major Keene, your revolver. You must shoot it.”

“You can’t shoot a snake. You must break its neck with a stick. Haven’t you seen the Indian boys pop them off?”

“Please, Major, your revolver. It must be shot.”

In spite of the need for haste, Major Keene squinted his eyes the better to take in Dorothy Marsh. In that fleeting glimpse he thought her damned good-looking. Everybody said she had style. Wore her clothes like a manikin—always so well turned out. But now, standing there under the light in something loose that seemed to be slipping from her shoulders, with her hair in disorder, she was certainly restful to the eyes, the Major decided.

“It’s no time to argue about what we shall kill it with,” he said. “I’m coming.”

He picked up his walking-stick, which was standing in the corner with his hat resting on top of it. The Major never bothered to put anything in its place when he came in in the evening. He dropped things anywhere and let the boy tidy up in the morning. As he passed the table he noticed his service Webley lying on it. He slipped it into the pocket of his robe. He couldn’t help wondering what made her want a gun to polish off a snake. She was framed in the open doorway of her apartment as he ran across the corridor.

“Did you bring the revolver?” she asked.

“Yes. It’s in my pocket.”

“Be careful,” she said, as she held an electric torch for him to see his way down the two steps which led to the bathroom. The tin tub stood full of water as it stands in most Indian bathrooms. The door which gave on the compound, used only by the compound coolie, was closed. A small window high up in the wall was partly open, but no snake could have come through that.

She pointed to the drain.

“A worm couldn’t get through that,” the Major said. He bent down to see if he could trace the streak, like a silver line, which a snake sometimes leaves in its wake.

He could discover nothing. How did she get the wind up about a cobra? he was thinking. Could she have imagined it? She hadn’t been drinking. And even if she had been, she hadn’t got to the stage where she was seeing things. It was all damn funny. What did you say to a woman who thought she had seen a cobra? He straightened up and laughed. Perhaps she was trying to hand him a joke.

“Where did you see it?” he asked her.

“Just there.” She pointed to the drain.

“Did you have the light on, then?”

“Naturally.”

She could lie as easily as an Indian cook about the bazaar expenses, he thought. What was the game? He didn’t know her very well. But you didn’t knock about a cantonment of South India with three years to your credit and not know something about the women in the place, especially one like Dorothy Marsh, whose scintillating light could never be hidden under a bushel. Her name was for ever coupled with some fellow’s. He had heard that the latest was some civil chap.

They went into her sitting-room. He stood by the door with his hand on the knob ready to go. She put a cushion behind her head and slid down in a chair. She dangled one of her mules from her toes and looked at him. The chiffon thing all frothed with lace was still slipping off her shoulders. The light just behind her chair brought out the bronze tints in her hair. There was something theatrical about her that made him want to shake her; Her excitement had vanished, leaving in its place a languid, weary pose.

“Don’t worry any more about the cobra,” he said. “He won’t come back to-night. If you need me . . .”

“Don’t go.” Her words sounded like a command. And then in a softer tone she added, “I’m frightfully nervous. I’m jumpy to-night. It was a bit of a shock.”

“Where’s Dick?” he asked, as he dropped down on the chair nearest the door. You couldn’t leave a woman who said she was afraid to stay alone. He might as well make the best of it.

She said her husband had gone out with Captain Ashley. They were going to try to get the tiger which the shikar had reported was nosing round a village on the Mysore road. It didn’t need much of an excuse for Dick to go out if he thought he could get any shooting.

“Will he spend the night with Ashley afterwards?” the Major asked.

“I don’t think so,” she answered. “I believe he’ll be back, but I don’t know when. Sometime before dawn, I suppose. Are you very sleepy?”

“Not now. I was feeling a bit drowsy before the cobra put in his appearance. I was just going to turn in.’

“Have a whisky and soda.”

“Too late. The bar is closed. This little old hotel is locked up at ten o’clock. Keeps convent hours.”

“I have an ice-box on the verandah. There’s some cold soda, and the whisky is in here. Boy,” she called, “get whisky and soda for the sahib.” He heard the clink of glasses on the verandah, and the little thud as the boy closed the lid of the ice-box.

“How do you manage to keep your boy until this hour?” he asked. “Mine leaves the minute I swallow dinner. And if I didn’t insist upon his staying that long he would go as soon as he put out my dinner jacket.”

“I do not manage to keep the boy,” she explained, “it is a case of utter devotion to master.” There was almost a hiss in her words. “Dick has had the boy for ages. Had him before I came out.”

The Major was wondering why the boy had not helped to dispatch the cobra. Just then he came into the room with the soda water bottles and the glasses on a tray. He took the whisky out of a cupboard. The Major watched him, fascinated. He was a Pathan, well over six feet. His movements were curved, circular, as the movements of the Pathan are apt to be, without angles or sudden breaks in the rhythm. Young he was, but old in that special way which Indians are old. With sulky politeness he approached the Major. He started to pour out the whisky and looked to the Major to say when.

Hogea,” the Major said, speaking in Hindustani.

The perfect Pathan lips turned upwards in just the hint of a smile. The sahib had spoken his language, not the language of the southern pigs. Then the Major saw his eyes. Where had he seen such an expression before? That spaniel he had at home before he came out; Rover, what a fine chap he was; such devotion. Poor little beggar was poisoned. He never got to the bottom of that. Why should the Pathan’s eyes remind him of Rover’s? What strange flashes came out of this land, out of its cycles of mystery? What was it about this silent, gliding barefoot man that seemed to speak to him without voice or sound?

“You may go now, Boy,” she was saying. “The Major will stay with me for a while. Don’t wait for master. It may be very late before he returns.” The Pathan went out, but the Major felt that he would do as he pleased about waiting for master.

“A handsome man,” the Major said. “The Pathans are easily the best-looking men in India.”

“I have never known any,” she said, “only servants; I don’t suppose they count very much.”

“I wonder,” the Major said. He seemed to be thinking aloud.

“What could happen to a servant, for heaven’s sake,” she asked. “He will always be a servant. In this country the conditions of the people never change.”

“No, perhaps you are right. But even a servant can influence our lives—sometimes.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

What the devil had he meant? He had just blurted out something for no reason whatever. He seemed a little confused. He laughed a little uneasily and took a big swallow of the whisky.

“Soon you will be moving into your new quarters, won’t you?” he asked.

“Yes. We should have moved two or three weeks ago. The bungalow is ready.”

“Surely it would be better than this hotel,” he said.

“Oh, I don’t know. The hotel is not so bad. The bungalow is in a very lonely spot and, unfortunately, I can’t have the car whenever I want it. Dick has to have it now, you know.”

He was wondering how he could terminate the conversation. How could he leave. He must get out somehow. He got up rather clumsily. “I really must go along,” he said. “I am sure you are not nervous now.”

“Why must you go?” she pleaded. She brought a coaxing note into her voice which instead of bringing him to heel, simply annoyed him.

“Well, perhaps Dick wouldn’t like me sitting here all night talking to you—in my pyjamas.”

She laughed, running a hand through her disordered hair and giving her head a little toss. “You are priceless,” she said.

Would she rise to anything? he wondered. Would he have to open the door and slam his way out? She came over to him and tried to hold his eyes with the amber fire which burned in hers. He turned his head away and pretended to look at the carved tusk of an elephant on the end of the mantel.

“Go, then,” she said. “But please leave your revolver with me. It might come back again, and I would never dare to go near enough to hit it with a stick.”

“It won’t come back again,” he said.

“But if it does. . .?” The coaxing tone was back in her voice. Fear had come into her eyes. She appeared frail, frightened of events. Once more he felt like shaking her. She needed a damned good spanking, he thought. She hovered round the subject of the gun as a cat hovers round a mouse, knowing it hers whenever she wishes to pounce. He took the Webley out of his pocket and put it on the table. “There you are,” he said, “but this is nonsense.” Quickly he turned the knob and slid out into the corridor.

Just before he closed the door he saw her holding the revolver and looking at him with big, astonished eyes. Indistinctly he heard something about being afraid to use the deadly-looking thing after all.

*  *  *

Very quietly he went out on his verandah. He tiptoed so she would not hear him and come out on her own verandah. Only a slim iron railing divided the verandahs.

What a night! What a woman! He couldn’t sleep now. He wanted a cigarette, but he wouldn’t light it in case the flash of the match might bring her out. No doubt she wanted to add him to her list. Perhaps she had expected him to take her in his arms. She was damn’ good-looking, but she had a rag on every bush. She’d be stale as mouldy bread. Poor old Dick. Was he wise to her actions? Did he love her? Could a chap love a woman he had to share with others? Yes, it must be so, some fellows married girls out of bawdy houses. He heard someone moving about down below. He looked over the railing. It was the Pathan sitting on the edge of the driveway waiting for Dick. What did the Pathan think of the woman who was faithless to his beloved master? How strange the devotion of the Pathan seemed to-day when the Indians were directing all their hatred against Europeans.

Suddenly he knew he wanted the Pathan to see him on his own verandah. He coughed. The cough was almost inaudible, but the Pathan looked up and salaamed without speaking. Then he walked away, his bare feet making not the slightest sound, and disappeared at the side of the hotel where the shadows were deepest. The Major couldn’t see him, but he knew he would continue to wait for his master. The Major’s mind went on about Dorothy Marsh; a coarse little hussy, taking her passion neat, undiluted by love or sentiment. A woman who would sap a man not knowing how to give. What was she doing now? He hoped she had gone to bed.

He listened to the weird night hymn of India. There was the barking of dogs in it, the shrieking of men, the crying of infants, the moaning of trees, the wail of the jackal, the muffled tramp of padded feet slipping out of the jungle, the plaintive hoot of owls, the last call to prayer trailing down from the minaret, the clang of the temple bell, and on the outer rim of all the throbbing beat of the tom-toms. The moon rolled down the sky like a flaming wheel and disappeared behind a cloud. Ancient palaces brooded over the tangled undergrowth of modern shops at their base; tiny shops that looked like lighted caves along the dark streets. A breeze rose and fell like the respiration of a leopard.

The Pathan had not come back. Perhaps he didn’t care to sit on the edge of the driveway now. No doubt he thought he should stand in the presence of a sahib; for there was so much of yesterday about him. He was almost an anachronism to-day. The Major got up and tiptoed inside.

*  *  *

Hours later he sat up in bed with a start. What the devil was that? A shot. God Almighty, it couldn’t be. He jumped out of bed and stepped out on the verandah. Just as he did so he saw something thrown over the railing of Marsh’s verandah. The object picked up a tiny streak of light from somewhere and he saw it flash as it fell. He looked over the railing, but he couldn’t see where it had fallen. It dropped into the plumbago bushes which formed themselves into a hedge to outline the driveway.

He heard someone groan. It was Dick Marsh. He heard a woman’s voice in startled, whispered shrieks. What had happened? How long had he been asleep? It must be about three, by the look of the street. There wasn’t a soul about. Had no one heard the shot? Was it a shot, or had some heavy piece of furniture been overturned? No. It was a shot. Damn it all, he knew a shot when he heard one. Had there really been a cobra, and had the blasted thing come back again? An awful thought came rushing into his mind. Did the snake get Dick before he shot it? Why the devil didn’t he take a stick to it? Who ever heard—— He felt he should call out to Dick and yet something held him back. He couldn’t explain what it was. It seemed to paralyse his voice.

Then he remembered his Webley. Had Dick seen it? Would Dick believe the cobra story? If the cobra had come back, of course he would believe it. But in case—— He Wondered if he, in Dick’s place, would believe such a story.

A motor turned in at the gate and stopped just below the verandah. The Pathan got out of it and slipped through the entrance to Marsh’s apartment. Presently he saw the Pathan helping Dick into the car. Dick seemed to be suffering intensely. If the cobra got him they shouldn’t be dawdling. Every moment was precious. The chauffeur was cranking the car. What in blazes was the matter with the self-starter? Would he ever get into his seat and start? Finally the car drove away. The Pathan had gone with Dick. Where was Mrs. Marsh? Should he call to her and ask her what had happened? No, he had better not do that. If only he had his revolver!

He went inside and got into bed again, this time with a book. Some fate decided that he shouldn’t sleep to-night. The night seemed full of menace. He could almost believe, with the Hindus, that some restless spirit strode through the shadows making everything hideous with its own misery.

*  *  *

In the morning one of the hospital runners brought him a chit, evidently written by a nurse at Dick’s dictation. “Come and see me, Keene,” he read. “I am rather seedy and would like to have a talk with you.”

He went down to breakfast. He wondered if anyone would mention the shot. He couldn’t understand why no one had appeared last night. They must have heard it. He had expected everyone in the hotel to come rushing over to the bungalow where he and the Marshes had rooms. The hotel consisted of several bungalows and the main building in which the dining-rooms and drawing-rooms were located.

The dining-room was almost deserted. There was an elderly couple at one table and a young girl at another. They didn’t look up as he passed them. Mrs. Marsh was nowhere about. Was Dick going to ask him what his revolver was doing in his wife’s apartment? Was Dick going to accuse him of——God, anything but that . . . Before he would have his name linked with that . . . he would . . . Old Dick had not been bitten by the cobra or he wouldn’t be sending round chits. What the devil could have happened?

Dick Marsh was in bed, propped up with several pillows. His shoulder was bandaged. His eyes burned like two fierce lamps under his curling brows. There was something awful in their feverish steadiness. His face looked ghastly. Thin, blue shadows died the skin near his mouth. He was a good-looking chap; but for months his face had been clouded by worry, and his smile, once so ready, seemed to have taken leave of absence.

He stared at the Major. There followed a prolonged blistering silence. Finally he said, “I shot myself last night, Keene, accidentally, like a damn’ fool. I was removing my belt. Somehow my gun went off.” He looked at the Major as if he dared him to refute his statement. And then, as if some secret spring in him had been released, he laughed.

“I’m jolly glad you made such a rotten job of it,” the Major said. “Is your shoulder very bad?”

“I’ve often felt more comfortable, but it’s not very serious. I’ll be out in a few days. They got the bullet.” When he mentioned the bullet he tried to hold the Major’s eyes again with his burning stare. When was he going to mention the Webley? Why didn’t he come to the point?

“I want you to do something for me, Keene,” he said.

“I’ll do anything I can,” the Major answered.

“See Dorothy. Try to cheer her up. This is pretty rough on her. She’s been very nervous and unstrung lately, and now I have to make a fool of myself and frighten her to death, poor girl. She’s never been very happy out here. India’s pretty dull for a girl like Dorothy.”

The Major agreed with him, and wondered when he was going to begin to accuse him. If he would only get to it and relieve the strain. Was he expecting a confession? Was he waiting for something to be said which would give him the lead he wanted? The Major decided that he might as well blurt, it out; tell him how the Webley happened to be in his wife’s room. But would he swallow the snake story? Not finding any snake, why had he left the gun? That was the point to it all. He would have to drag in Mrs. Marsh. Could he do that? It seemed damned weak. He knew Dick would resent any blame placed on his wife. But he must say something. He couldn’t sit there like a dummy. He wondered if he looked very foolish.

“Well, old chap,” he began, “I suppose you think that I——”

The curtain was pulled to one side and the Pathan came in. He bent over Dick and gave him a letter. Dick put the letter under his pillow. That look again in the eyes of the Pathan as he bent over his master! There was tenderness in it and protection. But there was something else, something of fatality. Indian mystics had that look in their eyes.

He saluted the Major. The same little smile curled his lips upward which the Major had noticed when he had spoken to him in Hindustani. The man approved of him. Somehow it made him feel confident, assured. Why should he care what an Indian servant thought of him?

The nurse came in. “Don’t tire yourself,” she cautioned Dick. She hovered about him doing little jobs which are always done in hospitals. She put a cool pillow under his head. The pillow had been cooling under the electric fan. She straightened out the bedclothes with a little deft pat and started to drop something into a glass.

The Major knew she wanted him to go, although she said nothing about it. He supposed he would have to go without having a chance to explain. It was awkward leaving Dick without a word. But he couldn’t talk before the nurse and he felt sure she was going to outstay him. He took up his topee, which he had placed on the floor beside his chair, and got up. Dick reached out his unbandaged arm to shake hands with him. Was he being polite? There was an appeal in his eyes.

“You will see Dorothy, won’t you, Keene?” he said.

“With pleasure,” the Major answered. “And I’ll do anything I can. Buck up, old man, you’ll be out of here in a few days.”

The Pathan was waiting in the corridor. He saluted and asked the Major if he might drop in at the hotel in the afternoon.

“Have you any message for me?” the Major asked.

“No, sir,” he answered, “but I have something I must give you.”

“Very well, then; come at four,” the Major said. He didn’t ask the Pathan what it was he wished to give him. Perhaps she was returning the Webley by the servant.

*  *  *

At four the Pathan came to the Major’s room and put the Webley on the table.

“Thanks,” the Major said. “From the Memsahib, I suppose?”

“No, sir.”

The Major eyed him. “Explain.”

“I found the revolver in the compound, in the bushes under the window.”

“When?”

“Just after it was thrown down, sir.”

So that had been the object which flashed past him when he was standing on the verandah after being awakened by the shot! The Pathan must have been in the compound all night. What had he feared that made him decide to remain in the compound watching? Fortunately he had been on hand to take Dick to the hospital.

“I can’t see why my gun was thrown out,” the Major said. “It was your sahib’s own gun which went off and injured him, wasn’t it?”

“The bullet went into the back of his shoulder, sir.”

“Then it was——” The Major hastily broke the Webley and counted the cartridges. One was missing. So it was a bullet from the Webley which injured Dick! But that meant— Oh, God Almighty, it couldn’t be possible. If his gun had shot Dick it would take a lot of explaining to convince the courts that he was not guilty. And he had thought she simply wanted to add him to her list. She must have fired the shot and thrown the Webley over the railing with almost the same movement of the arm.

He thought of that moment of horror when she realized she had missed. What must her reactions have been? Gratitude to the powers that be for delivering her—or an overpowering fear of Dick and what he might do. Had her latest lover put her up to the dastardly crime? Could it be possible that it had originated in her own mind? Perhaps she was mad and no one suspected it? Did Dick know she was mad? Dick couldn’t have known whose revolver she had used.

She must have fired as soon as he came in, before he had time to undress. He had been fully dressed when the Pathan helped him into the car. What a blessing he hadn’t messed everything up when he saw Dick at the hospital! He would have spilled the beans if the Pathan hadn’t come in. No doubt Dick believed he had swallowed the story of the accidental shooting. Did Dick love his wife, or was it his old fear of scandal? He always had a Victorian dowager’s fear of scandal. The fellows at the mess used to chaff him about it before he was married.

What must the Pathan be thinking? He didn’t want to meet the Pathan’s eyes just now. He took ten rupees out of his pocket and held them out without looking up. Through his eyelashes he saw them still in his hand. Wasn’t the man going to take them? Suddenly he saw the slender brown hand of the Indian reach down and close over them. He knew he had taken them only to relieve the situation. He didn’t hear the door shut but when he looked up the man had gone.

*  *  *

Dorothy Marsh relieved him of keeping the promise he had made to her husband in the hospital. He was thankful, for he hated to meet her. Did she know he was aware of the crime she would have let him in for? She left the hotel soon after Dick went to the hospital. No one seemed to know where she went. Perhaps she was with the lover for whose sake she would have taken Dick’s life. Perhaps she was overcome with remorse and had gone away where no one could find her.

When Dick left the hospital he went to the bungalow which had been ready for them for some time. Several months later she came out of hiding and went to live with him at the bungalow.

The Major visited, them occasionally. Sometimes she asked him to dinner. Her pose was now a snaky, slithering, unfathomable melancholy. The Major wondered if it came from remorse or from the frustration of her desires. In a way her morbidity gave her a strange subterranean allure. A wisdom which seemed to have nothing to do with fact emanated through her pose of weary sophistication. Strange ghosts mocked in her eyes while the small chatter of the day trickled through her lips. The Major felt she had something to say to him if she could ever find herself alone with him. He avoided any such possibility as he would have avoided the plague. He wondered how Dick could go on living with a woman who had tried to murder him. No doubt he believed that no one but the Pathan knew of the shooting. But this fact could not help two souls shut up together in their agony. Everyone in the station had accepted Dick’s story of the accident.

*  *  *

One morning, almost a year after the tragedy, the Major was sitting on the verandah of the Club. He had a magazine in his hand but he wasn’t reading it. Instead, he was looking at the landscape, thinking how unreal it seemed; like the masterpiece of some wild futurist. Splashes of red and yellow broke through a tangled mass of green, and rocks seemed to crumble into mauve and blue shadows. The air was so hot, the scorch of the sunlight so intense, the country seemed to tremble in the blur of it like something seen through dancing flames. He was wishing for the cleansing fury of the monsoon.

Captain Ashley came out of the bar with a long drink in his hand. Two straws were sticking out of the glass and there came a faint tinkle of ice as he carried it over to a table, where he plumped down on a chair.

“Hot’s hell, isn’t it?” he said.

The Major said something about it being soon time for the monsoon to break.

“Pretty hot to get into your togs and go to a funeral,” Captain Ashley said.

“Who’s dead?” the Major asked.

Astonishment came into the Captain’s jaded eyes and lighted them up for a moment. “Dorothy Marsh,” he answered. “I thought you’d know. You go over there, don’t you?”

The Major’s heart missed a beat. He felt stunned, as if the Captain had struck him. He heard his voice, which he hoped wasn’t too shaky, saying, “I haven’t been round there for ages. What did she die of?”

“That’s the worst of it,” the Captain answered. “She was bitten by a daboia.”

“You mean Russell’s viper?”

“About the same thing. The little asp that did for Cleopatra.”

“How did it happen?”

“The damn thing was in her bed.”

“But how——”

“Easy enough. If the thing got in under the bedclothes before the servant put the net down, he wouldn’t see it. That’s the worst of this damn country. It’s full of pests that you’re for ever meeting in your bed, or your bath, even in your shoes.”

The Major said nothing.

Captain Ashley went on: “Every age has its Cleopatra. Of course their style may be cramped by circumstances.” He sucked some of the liquid up through the straw. “Did you know she was going to leave Dick?” he asked.

“No,” the Major answered.

“She was going to light out with Belmont. You know Belmont?” He didn’t wait for an answer but went on to explain, “He’s a lawyer. His father’s some bigwig at home. It seems that Dorothy and Belmont had been in love for some time. Got to the stage where they couldn’t live without one another. She had actually talked it over with Dick. I don’t know what the upshot of the talk was. The story leaked out through him, Belmont. It would have been an awful blow to Dick. Almost worse than her death. You know how he always steered clear of any scandal. He got himself transferred when she talked of going. He’s going to Poona. It’s just as well, now that this has happened. He’d hate this place now.”

In his mind the Major saw the Pathan arranging the net on Dorothy Marsh’s bed, his perfect lips compressed in a straight line, his eyes with that look of the mystic in them.

Divider

Funeral March

Anna’s carriage was just behind the hearse. The hearse was black—drawn by black horses. It was the only Christian touch about the funeral. Anna had insisted upon the hearse.

Through the glass of the hearse his purple coffin could be seen. It was the purple of violets—shadowy, like night. The silver handles were very large—a mass of carving. How they would have pleased him! She wondered if he knew what was happening. What did they know—the dead who had gone up through space—up through the fields of glittering anemones? Did they know everything? Life would flicker out if left to itself—like a consumed candle. How did it differ from life that was blown out? Could life that was blown out be relighted in its late environment? Her mind shuddered at the thought. Would he come back and prowl?

Why had she killed him? She didn’t know. She always had to do the strange—the unusual. Something always made her do the strange—the unusual. It made her marry the old Chinese tea merchant. It made her laugh at the concubines he supported. It made her pick up the needle and jab in the morphia when he was lying on his couch in the opium stupor. He used the needle when he tired of his pipe.

Her mind lurched back to the day she had seen the needle on the little black-wood table. Her eyes had not been able to leave it. It made her fingers itch. She had wanted to see his coffee-coloured sleep deepen—to see him a little more rigid. How yellow he had looked—how wizened! She had to pick up the needle, pull the undiluted liquid into it, and press it into his wrist. Then she had extracted it and left the room.

Later the concubines had found his body. They thought he had smoked too much. He was old, they said, and his heart could not stand so many pipes.

She had wept when they brought her the news. Her weeping was not a pose. She had been genuinely wretched afterwards.

Her father and mother were following in separate carriages. They could not sit together, for they could not look into each other’s eyes. Neither could they look into the eyes of their daughter. Each member of the family was strangely alone to-day.

From words which Anna had unguardedly dropped during her grief, her parents knew of the needle. Her father was indifferent. Her mother wanted to be sorry. She had, in a way, succeeded. But she did not care to meet her daughter’s eyes to-day. She saw in them her own failure. She listened to the beat—the beat of the horses’ hoofs. It passed inside her head—beat—beat—beat. She watched the flapping streamers on the street. She counted them to divert her mind from Anna—from the incessant beat of the hoofs. There were twelve yellow ones, eighteen red ones, and a few scalloped ones. She had liked the Chinese characters on the streamers, describing the merchandise in the shops, when she had first come to China.

They were so definite. They had the accurate charm of geometry. Her mind had leant against their precise beauty. Now she wondered if she cared so much for them. They had become fingers pointing at her accusingly. How evenly the hoofs were striking the street now, beating out a rhythm, definite—precise—the hoofs and the streamers—definite—precise.

Her husband was in the third carriage behind hers. She felt his hatred passing through the other two carriages and stabbing her. She knew he hated her now in a dull, secret way. A strange union theirs had been. Their marriage had been arranged by their families to save a fortune which would have slipped away if he had married the woman he had wanted to marry.

Anna was their first child. She had the twisted fury of their resentment. They had other children—but long after Anna—when he despised her and she did not care. Very different children can come from the same pair of bodies. Anna’s brothers were dull and harmless.

When Anna said that she was going to marry the old Chinese tea merchant, according to the Chinese custom, her mother had tried to persuade her against such a step, and had pleaded with her to marry a white man. Her father had smiled briefly and said nothing.

The hearse turned in at a stone gateway. Anna’s carriage followed. Some of the carriages waited in the roadway. Others drove in and took their places near the tomb of the tea merchant’s ancestors. The beat—beat—of the hoofs slowed down, then stopped. Anna did not notice if her father and mother drove in.

It was rather imposing—the tomb of the tea merchant’s ancestors; and the plots of ground round it had a quiet dignity. All were green. There were no flowers anywhere to interrupt the green.

The paid mourners wailed and pretended to tear the white cotton of their costumes. This man had been very rich. Grief must be in proportion. The concubines, dressed in white silk, stood by the tomb. They could be interested in the people about them, for the paid mourners would do their duty.

Models of the dead man’s worldly goods were produced to be burned. There were the models of his motor-car, his houseboat, his writing-table, his rickshaw.

Anna remained in her carriage. She happened to look up as they carried past the model of his opium couch. She saw again the needle on the blackwood table, the coffee-coloured sleep, the rigid pause. She shuddered.

Divider

Detained

He staggered down the narrow grey Hutung. At the end of it was a silk shop. He entered the shop and stood bewildered in the middle of the floor. The Chinese clerk was ladling rice into his mouth with chopsticks. What fine hands he had—so like hers! All Chinese hands were the same: four slender fingers curved round the rice-bowl—four more manipulated the chopsticks. There was no sound but the rice passing his throat.

The man in the middle of the floor pulled himself together. “Give me a piece of blue silk,” he demanded. The words hissed from his lips as hot grease leaps from a pan. Down went the rice-bowl and the chopsticks. The hands were hurriedly wiped on a dirty gown, then were reached for bolts of silk.

“The light or dark blue, master?”

“For the dead.”

“Oh!”

The hands unrolled one of the bolts. “The usual length, master?”

“Yes.” The man threw some silver on the counter, picked up the silk and left. The night had arrived while he made his purchase. He plunged into it now, pulling up his collar. It was cool for north China. A damn late spring, he thought. But what did it matter? What did anything matter? A rotten end to all his plans. Why, in God’s name, if she had to commit suicide didn’t she wait until he had started for home? He had been going home. The first time in ten years he was to see a white man’s country.

*  *  *

A strange scene met his eyes when he entered his house. During his absence her relatives had erected an altar—he could think of nothing else to call it. The huge coffin, in which the remains of the small Manchu woman rested, had been placed on the floor before it. Surrounding the coffin were pots of imitation money. “Have you got more of this stuff?” he asked one of the priests. “Is there no satisfying the Chinese Charon? I thought the fifty-eight million dollars of this trash which she rests on in the coffin were enough.”

No one paid any attention to him. What did he amount to, a foreigner? Their business was with the dead. The white cock in his cage on top of the coffin crowed lustily.

“That damn bird—can’t you take it out of here for the present?” he asked.

A priest glared at him. “Would you have her spirit stay here in the house after her body has been taken away?”

“Well, if I say no, I wouldn’t!”

“Then the cock must stay where he is.”

“How much longer are you going to stay here beating your infernal drums and making this hell of a noise?”

“It is not safe to stop the noise until her body leaves the house.”

The man looked at the priest’s robes. “You are a Taoist, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And that fellow over there is a Buddhist, and that other chap—what the devil is he?” He pointed to a long-robed figure.

The priest did not answer his question, but said: “Who knows where the soul of this woman may go?”

“So she better stand in with all the places, and give each one of you a chance to get more squeeze. I call it blackmail.”

“Would you have her brother steal the fine coffin which you bought for her?” asked the priest. “If we leave before she is buried that is what will happen.”

“What do you mean?”

“He will sell this coffin,” a finger with a long, dirty finger-nail pointed to the coffin, “and get her a three-dollar one.”

“The swine! Will you all clear out for a few moments?” the man pleaded. “You must go and chow. Even the watchers of the dead must eat. This is my house. Give my ears a rest for a moment., I will watch until you return.”

For a moment the priest hesitated, but the weary look in the man’s face sent him to his companions. He whispered something to them. The noise stopped. One by one they left the room. When the last one had passed out the man closed the door and locked it.

He took the piece of blue silk from his pocket and shook it out. Slowly, hesitatingly he approached the coffin. He stood looking down at the corpse. Tears coursed down his cheeks. He spoke slowly: “You paid me back all right—when I was ready to go home to my wife—ready after all these years. I can’t go now. I wonder if you know? I wonder if you are pleased—pleased that I am detained for the inquest? Pleased that I may be here indefinitely—if too much of this case leaks out.”

He bent down and put the blue silk over all that remained of the Manchu woman. Then he sat down on the floor near a bucket of imitation money and wrote out a cable which he hoped would fix things with his wife.

Divider

The Stone God’s Temple

Suresh Das was a tailor. Also he was a scoundrel. This latter distinction did not separate him from others of his caste. All Indian tailors were scoundrels. Suresh’s body was not fat, neither was it greasy. This fact did separate him from others of his calling. Rice and a few plantains stirred up with a little ghee (clarified butter) was not a slimming diet. It made one fat and puffy, and inclined to sit in the shade, and let the boys, who were learning the trade, carry on.

The boys had less rice and plantains and never any toddy to wash them down; for the tailors are apt to pay with promises and threats, and no boy born in the tailors’ caste could seek a job outside his own sept. Suresh’s body was lean with the exception of his abdomen, which resembled a mound of brown earth. His face was pock-marked and usually streaming with sweat which he wiped off with his dhotie or the end of his long oily hair. His eyes were too close together, and his nose, which had been broken in an argument with one of his compeers over a bazaar woman, did little to enhance his attractions.

His shop was in a vile-smelling street in the native quarter of Madras. The tailors shared the street with copper-smiths and enamelers of brass. A few cloth shops had crept in, hoping to supply the tailors when they were short of materials.

Suresh’s shop opened on the street like a great yawn. Wooden shutters were drawn over it at night, securely tucking in the big bolts of red and blue cotton, and the three sewing-machines which were operated by the boys. During the heat of the day Suresh stretched out on a cutting table at the back of his shop. At such times his belly rose from the stalk of himself like a huge fungus on a withered limb.

Usually he slept, his snoring mingling with the hum of the sewing-machines and the chatter of the boys. He was relieved of the necessity of fitting any one—for his customers wore dhoties and saris, costumes consisting of long straight pieces of cloth whose only claim to being tailored was a border sewn round the edges. Three boys worked for Suresh, their sartorial accomplishments being the ability to stitch a straight seam without puckering the cloth.

In the evening, before the shutters were put up, Suresh would sit on the mat on the floor, his legs crossed, and dispense pan and shredded betel-nut to his friends.

Talk never lagged for a moment. There was much to discuss; politics, riots, women—especially women. Sometimes religion was mentioned, but only in its relation to the demands of the priest for a temple donation, or for a gift to propitiate some god or demon.

One day Suresh startled his friends by saying: “I am taking a new wife.” For a moment there was complete silence while each friend reacted inwardly to the information. If their thoughts could have been visible they would have appeared something like this: This pig owes me fifty rupees, perhaps he thinks I will forget it. Cursed be this descendant of dogs, he hasn’t paid the rent of his house for two years. His wife is old, and ugly as a bhuta (ghost). Wonder what he has to pay for the new wife? Thinks he’ll have a son this time. There are stories in the bazaar that he can’t produce . . .

Ramaswamy spat out a long stream of betel juice and asked: “When’s the wedding?”

“In about a week,” Suresh answered. “It’s all arranged.”

“I hope she’ll have, a son, this new wife,” Govinda Lal said.

“If she’s not fruitful I must try again,” Suresh answered gloomily. “She’s twelve years old and strong, and Thvashtri willing, she will have a son.”

Ramaswamy spoke again. He was worried because he owned the house Suresh occupied, the rent of which his tenant ignored with fine disdain. “It is expensive these days to keep two wives,” he said. “You are fortunate.”

Suresh ignored the remark. He had thought of giving his old wife a present, some fruit with just a few drops of——

But a body was a difficult thing to dispose of, and her brothers were for ever on the watch.

He had sent his old wife to the temple and the priest had performed his holy mantrams, but she had no son. Mantrams were useless when a wife was old and ugly. The priest could do so much better for a young woman. And the witch doctor had given her a potion, but all to no purpose. If he had a son he could divorce his old wife—if he were careful how he managed it. Until his son was born she could stay and do the work. It would save paying a servant.

Govinda Lal had a scheme for bringing down the price of rice, a little more boycott. After they thrashed out the idea they attacked the bazaar scandals. In due course Suresh hinted that it was time to put up the shutters. His friends salaamed, slipped their feet into their shoes, and left—all but Ramaswamy.

For two years he had lingered after the others had gone to ask the same question. This evening he varied the question a little. “Could you pay me some of the rent before the wedding?”

“Impossible,” Suresh answered hopelessly, as if it affected him not being able to pay. “I must pay her father, and I must give her a present—and there is the priest to be paid, Brahmans to be fed, the cost of the ceremony, the rice for the poor, several sacks of it. . . .”

Ramaswamy was cursing under his breath, but he remained calm. He even smiled, trying to find ways and means.

He suggested: “Perhaps you could give me what you have taken in to-day? Just a little on account.”

Suresh looked horrified. “The gods have settled down for the night,” he said. “Would you have me disturb the gods? Perhaps they have settled on the money.”

Ramaswamy got up, slipped his great toes under the straps of his sandals, and left. His evening ritual was over once more. But there was murder in his heart as he shuffled down the narrow, stinking street to the bazaar. He knew that Suresh paid the rent of his shop. He had to. A man could not change his shop, for his customers’ would not trouble to look for him when the street was full of tailors. But a man could live anywhere. One house was like another. He would tell Suresh to leave the house after the wedding. He would never pay, so he might as well find another tenant. If he refused to vacate he would complain to the temple. Suresh was on the list of those who received the temple income. No use having any trouble before the wedding. Better attend the marriage ceremony and keep his eyes open. Might learn something.

Suresh padlocked his shutters and walked up the street in the other direction. He passed the house which he meant to rent as soon as the wedding was over. It had a wall all round it. Quite high it was. No one could see over it. One couldn’t be too careful with a young wife. Ramaswamy’s house had been all right with the old wife. No one would try to spy on an old goose. The new house would cost more. He chuckled. What a fool Ramaswamy was! Things were going to be pretty expensive however he managed it. Ghee had gone up. So had rice. Fortunately he could give his wife a new sari whenever she needed one. Plenty of them in the shop. He would buy no more women in the bazaar. That would save quite a lot.

*  *  *

The idol-maker was pouring melted copper into a clay figure of Vishnu. They all substitute sealing-wax for metal when they are not found out, Suresh was thinking as he watched him. Suresh envied the goldsmiths, those who made idols, for they were allowed to have their shops in the temple premises. Spare parts of the gods were strewn over the floor, for gods were frequently repaired if they lost an arm or a leg. Suresh shuffled the spare parts with his toes while he waited for the goldsmith to finish his work. Finally the man left the figure to cool and solidify. He wiped his hands on his dhotie and squatted down on the floor beside Suresh.

“Well?” he said conversationally.

“How much is that?” Suresh pointed to a figure of Siva.

“Seventy rupees.”

“Seventy rupees?” Suresh exclaimed in a voice which could have been heard at the other end of the street. He had no intention of buying the idol, but it was right that he should be appalled at the price. “What a price. What a price,” he kept repeating.

The goldsmith simply raised his eyebrows and prepared himself a chew of betel-nut. He knew how long it took his customers to come to the point. Suresh smiled. He tried to make the smile ingratiating. There was something about it which suggested the grin of a dog when it wants another dog to be friendly. He was thinking that if he had time to come back every day for a week, he would, in the end, get the image at his own price. But there was no time to make the purchase properly.

“I am a poor man,” he explained. “I want a figure, but I can’t pay much. You make stone images, don’t you?”

The goldsmith lost interest. “There are some stone images,” he pointed to a row of figures: “mariamma, the small-pox goddess and ganesha.”

Suresh studied ganesha, the elephant-headed god. The carving on the figure was very crude. “How much is that ganesha?” he asked.

Being true to his race the goldsmith did not answer at once. “It is a road figure,” he explained. “If you would tell me where it is to be placed.”

Suresh could be as baffling as his opponent. “The stone figures are not always road figures,” he said. “I have seen them in the temples and in the shrines.”

“Yes, can be,” the goldsmith admitted reluctantly.

“How much?” Suresh asked again.

“Twenty-five rupees.”

Suresh helped himself to a pan leaf and some betel-nut from the goldsmith’s bowl. He sprinkled the nut on the leaf and rolled it. Then he coughed and cleared his throat and spat the result across the spare parts of the gods with unfailing precision. He was ready now to bargain. The bargaining continued for over an hour. Suresh finally bought the figure for ten rupees.

When the deal was settled a carter appeared as if by magic—the usual magic of the East, prearranged and worked in advance—to take the figure where Suresh bade him—also arranged in advance.

Suresh did not depart with the carter. He had his eye on a set of gold ear-rings. They were composed of a series of flat hoops, attached to which hung a tiny figure of Lakshami. The design was intricate, like a puzzle, the idea being to untangle the hoops. They were long. They would hang down to the shoulders. He would give them to her. That is, she could wear them when the child was born. He would show them to her and promise.

The goldsmith was adamant now. Suresh had to pay him almost what he asked for the ear-rings—a hundred rupees were counted into the predatory palm of the goldsmith. A lot of money. Suresh hated to part with it. It would have paid the rent to Ramaswamy for the two years. It would have more than paid. That was the only consolation in the transaction. He hated Ramaswamy. The rent wasn’t the only reason. Ramaswamy was the one who started those stories in the bazaar about him. He would show him? There would be a son or . . .

The goldsmith, knowing that Suresh had come to the end of his purchases, had gone back to his figure of Vishnu. Suresh salaamed and left through the side door which gave on the temple compound. It was as well not to be seen coming out of the goldsmith’s shop. People, were always prying round, and it would be worse now, for they knew he was taking a new wife.

*  *  *

The arrangements for the wedding were almost complete. The pandal, under which the marriage ceremony was to be performed, had been put up. At first it had looked like a huge mat shed, in which several motor-cars could stand. But that was only at first. Now it was decorated with branches of palm and bamboo, and stalks crowded with green bananas. White lotuses were twined round the posts and hung in festoons from the roof. Two boys had gone out in a boat and stripped the lotus pond. Not even a bud remained. The pond looked as if a cyclone had struck it.

The work of arranging the pandal was done by the washermen, and they received, according to caste law, all the unhusked rice on which they stood when reaching to hang the lanterns and the garlands of flowers. Suresh had told them not to put things too high. They looked better low, he said. At this instruction they had made signs behind his back.

He was standing now before the hydrant, which stood at one side of the pandal, watching them. He was cleaning his teeth with his finger and a little stick. He had bathed that morning by throwing water from his lotah over his body. The lotah held about a quart and he had filled it once.

His old wife was telling the porters where to place the small mats for the guests, and the large mat for the dancing girls. She didn’t hold with the expense of the dancing girls. She supposed some of them were Suresh’s women, for all temple girls were prostitutes now. She was glad the new wife was coming, for she would not be bothered any more with Suresh; not that he had visited her quarters very often last year. He had never wanted her. He had wanted the two bullocks and the money which her father had given her as a marriage portion. Neither had she wanted him. He smelt like a dirty jackal.

Now there would be peace. She would make the young wife do most of the work. He was taking a new house with a compound and a wall all round it. He had never done anything like that for her.

Suresh was sitting down now beside the hydrant. The barber was shaving him. To-day he would shave him with milk as well as water. Bridegrooms received this extra attention when their caste warranted it.

The astrologer was squatting on the ground a little away from the spattering of the water and the offices of the toilet. He had examined the young wife’s horoscope with that of Suresh and everything was in order. This was an auspicious day for the marriage.

A boy was taking sacks of rice off a cart and stacking them up just outside the pandal. Suresh counted the sacks. Eight of them—and rice was so dear now. Everything was dear now, and the people wouldn’t wait to be paid: It was awful to spend so much money—but he must have a son—he must. Only a son could light his funeral pyre. He would eat the big meat to give him strength. He would get a piece of forbidden beef from the butcher surreptitiously.

When the barber had finished with him he went into the pandal, for his relations had come to anoint him with saffron and oils. He squatted on a mat and gave himself up to the rites which must be performed before marriage. His new brother-in-law had come to wash his feet. On the ground were a number of little cups holding perfumes, oils, vermilion and a solution of cow dung. Everyone seemed to be touching him at once.

An old woman had taken off his head-cloth and was running her fingers, dripping with saffron-water, through his hair. He wondered who had bought the perfumes and the oils. His mother-in-law, no doubt.

In the house women were preparing the bride. She had caught a glimpse of Suresh when she was being brought there. She had thought him old and ugly. But one must obey one’s parents, and perhaps Thvashtri would give her many children.

*  *  *

The relations and the guests had assembled for the ceremony. The melted butter, milk and oils with which they had anointed themselves fought for first place with the odour of perspiration. The pandal smelt like a cupboard in which vile cheese had been stored for a year.

Ramaswamy sat on a mat near the entrance, taking stock of the expense. The wedding would cost easily a thousand rupees, what with such decoration, so much rice—he had seen it stacked up outside—feeding Brahmans, the priest’s fees—it might cost more than a thousand rupees.

Suresh and his wife were standing before the priest at the other end of the pandal. The white cloth was held between them so they could not see each other. He was slipping the marriage badge over the top of the cloth and tying it on her neck. Now the cloth was coming down. No one paid any attention to the ceremony. They had come for the distributions and because they should attend weddings.

Boys were passing round the betel and the pan leaves. Everyone would receive a coco-nut on the way out. The farmers and the poor got up and prepared to leave. The distribution of rice which was going on outside was more attractive. The relations and friends remained in the pandal. The place had thinned out, but the smell still lingered. The women had taken the bride back to the house. Suresh looked hot, he seemed to be dissolving. His wedding dhotie was carefully tucked in at the waist so he removed the sweat from his forehead with his finger.

He went outside with the priest talking very earnestly. He seemed to be pleading with the priest to do something. Ramaswamy followed them out and tried to hear what they were saying. He could catch only an occasional word. The priest went into the house. Ramaswamy touched Suresh on the shoulder as he was following the priest inside, and asked if he could speak to him for a moment. Suresh turned round. He was irritable.

“Come over under that tree,” he said. He waved his hand in the direction of the only tree on the place.

“But that’s the tamarind,” Ramaswamy said, “and promises made under it are useless. I. . .”

“It’s the only shade round here,” Suresh said. “Isn’t it hot?”

Ramaswamy raised his hands over his head in a gesture of despair.

“You said you would leave the house after the wedding,” he whined.

“I will,” Suresh answered. “Most of my furniture has gone already and the rest is going. See for yourself.” Men were carrying rope, beds and cooking pots out of the house. “I’ve got to go now,” Suresh said, “must see the priest. Go back to the pandal. I’ll be out again presently.”

“I’m going home,” Ramaswamy said hopelessly.

In the inner room of the house the priest waited for Suresh. There was nothing in the room but the stone figure of ganesha.

“You have the Ganges water with you and the holy water of the cow?” Suresh said.

“Of course. How could I come to a wedding without them?”

“Then you will remove the pollution from ganesha and purify him.”

“It’s not included in the marriage fee.”

“But you make no extra visit to do it; you are here and it takes only a few minutes.”

“It will be ten rupees extra,” the priest insisted, “for I must come back again. I must take the ghee, and the coco-nut milk and do my *mantrams.”

Suresh removed his head-cloth and scratched his head. “Can you come back to-night when we are all out in the pandal?” he asked.

“Yes, to-night I will return.”

It occurred to Suresh what a fool he had been to pay the goldsmith for ganesha. He could not claim the figure after the priest had purified it. He could have promised to pay him later. He could afford to lose one stone image, the son of a pig.

“Where are you going to live now?” the priest asked.

“I’ve taken a house at the other end of the village.”

The priest wondered what was behind it all, but he asked no further questions.

“Perhaps you could do it for five rupees,” Suresh suggested. “I have fed the Brahmans, given rice to the poor, made a temple donation. . . .”

“Everyone who gets married does that,” the priest said, but he was weakening. He knew the argument might last all day, and it was time he had his sleep and his opium.

Suresh, perceiving his weariness, took advantage of the situation. “I’ll send a sack of rice to the temple,” he said, “and three rupees.”

“Yes, yes, let the rice be sent, and the money. I will return to-night.” The priest’s words sounded final.

“All will be ready for you to-night,” Suresh promised; “there’ll be no one in the house.”

*  *  *

The scene in the pandal had changed. Benches had been moved in and placed in rows, leaving clear the carpet for the dancing girls. Little smoking lamps hung from the roof, nastily interfering with the perfume of jasmine and sandal incense. Men dressed in their best dhoties sat uneasily on the benches. They would have preferred to squat on the ground. They were tailors, brass moulders, goldsmiths, merchants, astrologers, and men who sold the loot of thieves and the salvage of riots and revolutions. Their women sat beside them in silken saris.

Blank women with nothing to conceal—for ever bearing children; insensible to the contempt of men; eating, drinking, cohabitating, dying—giving place to other women who would follow the same course.

Barefoot black boys were sweeping through the pandal like a breeze, appearing, vanishing, getting things done without seeming to be occupied—then escaping into the compound and into oblivion.

There were beauty, drama and poetry in the scene. Romance for the eyes which could discern it. Filth, squalor and disease for those who could not. There they sat, those strange brown children, easily frightened, easily comforted: all believing, all doubting: subtle, silent, secretive, baffling—their minds open to superstition as a field to rain, changing not at all through the passing of time—old, old children, drowsing through the centuries. At intervals coming awake to protect their dreams, then drowsing again, their consciousness god-clogged, creatures out of the cosmos, neither wholly human nor wholly bestial, but wavering between the two.

The men rolled betel-nut in leaves and told the ancient stories, monotonously, lazily, which the East never tires of. They gabbled about sales, plotted for to-morrow, yawned, stretched, tilted the wound silk on their heads to scratch beneath it.

Aromatic odours came in through the openings of the pandal, odours of bruised and trodden flowers and creepers dying amorously.

Outside, where the tamarind swayed beneath the moon, men squatted on the ground and discussed what was going on in the pandal.

Suresh and his new wife sat on a bench facing the assembly. Suresh wore a white silk dhotie and head-cloth. His bare legs looked like stems holding his great belly. One thought of a balloon balanced somehow on two sticks. His little wife sat beside him with lowered eyes and an expression of not being there. She wore a gorgeous sari of green and gold. It was a Benares sari which her mother had imported for the occasion. It was held in at the waist with a wide gold belt, also a present from her mother. She wore many finger rings, a nose screw and several bracelets. The ear-rings which Suresh had bought from the goldsmith were absent.

Some Europeans were wandering in. They wanted to see the dancing. Friends and relations walked up and salaamed before Suresh. His wife never raised her eyes. His old wife had gone to the new house to prepare for the home-coming.

The musicians started to play. One blew on a conch shell, two others played the vina, a fourth beat the tom-toms. They were accompanied by two old, toothless hags—former dancing girls—who puffed out their cheeks, clapped their hands, and made strange guttural sounds like the snoring of some primitive beast.

The dancing girls stood up. They were very young, not more than fourteen, but they were women, women with slender bodies and black hair—skilled to excite men with every gesture, women who had learned their lesson of intrigue, knowing nothing of love nor passion. They wore red saris of heavy silk shot through with irregular glittering bars which looked like flashes of lightning. Tiny bells were tied round their ankles. They advanced with their arms full of flowers, which, they tossed into the audience. Suddenly and furiously as a storm breaks they started the tandava, the cosmic dance of Siva,, full of achievement of bliss and conquest of evil. That the dance was usually done by men made no difference to these dancing furies. They dislocated their necks and all their joints with a complete disregard of anatomy; their slim hands and feet swiftly moving, knowing the feel of everything, touching the carpet with the effortless pressure of tawny paws.

Suddenly, as the storm had come up, it abated. They were moving only their hands now. Their fingers seemed to float through the air like fallen petals on water. The music had died down to a sob full of ancient misery, a sound torn clean from the earth, blown through some crack of nature, a tormented aching, something full of the first pain.

Ramaswamy shuffled towards the entrance; He looked round to see if his wife was watching him. She was not. He went out.

The sky looked like a bowl upside down; full of blue night and clouds like bunched smoke. Rising from the ground was a thin white mist, chill and a little melancholy. A rat scudded past with some of the food which had been left for the god. Over the drain datura blossoms swayed like temple bells in the wind. Haunch against heel, the servants and some bazaar men squatted under the tamarind tree. They were chewing betel and gossiping like their masters in the pandal.

Ramaswamy lingered. There was a faint noise in the house like some one chanting. If the dancing girls’ music would only stop he could be sure about it. The sound stopped now. Perhaps it hadn’t been in the house after all—but down on the road. He walked round the house. It was in pretty good repair. Perhaps he could rent it for more than he had asked Suresh. He would take good care to get no son of a pig in it again.

He tried the door, but it was locked. No one in the village ever locked a door. What could it mean? He tried to peer in at the windows, but he could see nothing. There was only one light and that was in the inner room, and the door was more than half closed. All the furniture was gone from the big room, and from the room at the side where Suresh’s wife had had her quarters. He wondered if Suresh would pay his new landlord. He wouldn’t if he could cheat him.

He sat down at the edge of the hydrant, where Suresh had been shaved for his wedding, and looked at the house. It might be better to live in it himself and rent the one he was living in. Suppose his wife would not consent to moving?

The music had stopped in the pandal. Everybody seemed to be talking at once. He went back. His wife and daughter-in-law were munching cakes and drinking lemonade; Suresh’s new wife looked as if she had fallen asleep. He edged up to Suresh. “You got a lot of presents,” he said.

“Yes,” Suresh admitted.

“Look as if they cost enough.”

“Yes,” Suresh admitted again.

“Don’t suppose you will leave them here in the pandal—with the servants to watch them?”

“No,” Suresh answered.

Ramaswamy was not making much headway.

“They could be left in the house,” he said, “if the door was locked.”

Suresh gave him a probing look. “I’m taking them with me,” he replied.

“Suppose you will send me the key to-morrow?”

“Won’t need to. The door’ll be open.” Suresh gave him another searching look.

“All right,” Ramaswamy said, “salaam.”

“Salaam.”

Ramaswamy’s wife and daughter-in-law toddled after him at a respectful distance. The people were taking their last pinch of betel-nut and receiving their coco-nuts and the little packets of saffron. The washermen were gathering up their unhusked rice. Soon the pandal would be deserted, and then the boys would roll up the carpets and take them to Suresh’s new house.

*  *  *

The morning was very hot. Ramaswamy carried a dingy umbrella over his head as he came up the path to the house.

The pandal looked bedraggled. Beggars and boys from the bazaar had pulled off the green bananas. The bale branches were scattered and trampled. A donkey was devouring anything green which had been left on the posts. Crows were pecking at scraps of food and refuse. The pandal reminded one of a crumbling temple that could no longer shelter its illusions. There was no sound but the cawing of the crows and the homely voice of a cow mooing somewhere behind the fence.

The shutters of the house were all closed. There was a young priest from the red temple standing in front of the door. What was he doing there? Ramaswamy saluted him and passed into the house. The priest smiled, but Ramaswamy did not notice.

The house seemed dark after the glare outside. There was a heap of old papers and rags on the floor. He would have to get the sweeper in. He would send up his own sweeper.

He went into the inner room—his heart missed a beat. He screamed, but he was unaware of it. There was ganesha, the stone god, on a wooden altar, his elephant-head moist from ghee and coco-nut milk. A garland of jasmine hung about his neck. He had just been purified.

This was his temple. It was a house no longer. It could never be a house again. No one could ever live in it. Ganesha could never be moved—never. He would stand there for ever on his altar behind the incense pot.

Ramaswamy dug his nails into the palms of his hands until they bled. He beat his breast until drops of blood stood out on it like red berries.

“The common son of a jackal,” he frothed, “so that’s what he’s done to me. That’s what he’s done to me. May his descendants be born without legs, without arms, without eyes. May there be no one to light his funeral pyre. May his soul be. . .”

But there was ganesha, and he was a god; and this was his temple. It would always be his temple. ‘He flung himself down before the idol. “Oh, ganeshjee, ganeshjee, visit him with . . .”

The young priest stood at the inner door of the new temple preparing a chew of betel-nut. He was smiling again.

Divider

Escape

Lois Marsh counted up her tin checks. Quite a tidy little pile. Twenty-eight of them. That meant that twenty-eight men had had a drink with her during her working hours—from eleven in the morning until midnight. Twenty-eight men had smiled at her across the table, or smirked or grinned or guffawed. Twenty-eight men had tried to hold her hand or rub knees with her under the table; had asked to see her after the bar closed. “Come on, kid, be sociable. Let’s step out somewhere.” No! Not twenty-eight to-day. Twenty-seven.

That young sailor wasn’t like the others. What fine eyes he had: clear and steady. Something glistened in them for a moment like unshed tears. He had only one glass of beer. Homesick, perhaps. Some of them got that way. He didn’t ask her to do anything after closing time. Didn’t want to walk home with her and kiss her. They usually tried to kiss her at the gate if she didn’t ask them in. She never allowed them to walk home with her any more. They were all the same. This one with the fine eyes would be just the same as the others outside in the dark.

She gathered up the tin checks and took them over to the counter. Sultana, the Maltese proprietor, grinned. She hated him. He had singled her out of the blur of girls who applied for the job. His eyes roved along her body that day making calculations. He had one loose tooth in his lower jaw which he worked his tongue against when he talked. His nostrils were full of coarse hair, and his tummy resembled one half of the earth’s surface.

Often he had tried to make up to her. She had held him off. How, she didn’t know. He could have told her. It was because she drew the men. He couldn’t afford to lose her. The cunning which made him serve his girls with water when the men ordered gin for them, and with cold tea when they ordered beer, discerned the bait of her beauty.

“Pretty good day’s work,” he said, as he counted the checks. “Fifteen gins and three beers. Sixpence for the gin and threepence for the beer. So you’ve had ten shillings and ninepence worth of drinks? Hard drinking for you, isn’t it?” He wiggled the loose tooth with his tongue and winked at her. “That gives you five shillings to-day.” He handed them over the counter. “Not too bad,” he went on. “You’re doing well.”

“Oh, yeah,” she slanged at him.

“Busy to-night, Alice?” She called out the question to a tousle-haired girl who was putting a curve on her upper lip with the aid of lipstick and a small pocket mirror.

“Yes, I’ve got a date,” the girl answered, as she bowed the rouge into shape with her finger. “Swell guy. Two and a half striper.”

“I’m going along,” Lois said. “Don’t fall over the furniture when you come in. I haven’t had a decent sleep for ages. I’m going to bed as soon as I get home. Dead tired.”

Outside the night rested like dark hair on a girl’s white shoulders, faintly scented, catching the star-glitter and holding it on the edge of the sea’s ripples. It felt warm and sumptuous. Buildings blended with the wavering forms of ships like figures in a dream. Columns and balustrades had no foundation. They rested on shadows constructed of haze and foam. In the hollows of the rocks the sea-water sparkled like tiny jewels. The seaweed was playing its little languid game of touch and go with the shore. The summer nights of Malta were beautiful. A smile poured down over them from the sky that looked so velvety soft and mysterious.

Lois loved the nights. Walking through the beauty of them she sometimes tried to imagine she was another person. One who was going to a beautiful home where love awaited her. One who was going to meet a lover down by the sea; a lover in a swift boat which would bear them away to some shore where they couldn’t hear the faintest echo of the life she hated.

These thoughts came to her on nights when she wasn’t too tired, too disgusted. A barmaid’s job in Malta was just sitting and talking to men who were more or less tight; who wanted to paw you over and whose breath smelled up to heaven of alcohol and beer. The awful monotony of days that opened with the opening of the bar door and closed when the last drunk had staggered out! How she hated them!

She shared a tiny house with two of the other barmaids—Alice, who was out now with her date, and Kitty, who was at present in the family way. Kitty had one baby now and she was expecting another. It meant nothing to her. Kitty took it all in her stride. Having babies, sitting in the bar, loving the boys until their ships sailed away—waiting for the ones who had sworn to come back and marry her. Kitty accepted what life offered. She whimpered a little when the gift was not what she wanted, but she took the next thing with outstretched hands. Lois wondered if it would be better to be like Kitty; to get through one day at a time and make no plans.

There was a sailor standing under the lamp-post. She saw the white braid on his collar and the wide swing of his trousers where they branched away from his shoes. He would ask the usual question and she would give the usual answer. Her job ended when the bar closed. When she came up to him she saw that he was the boy with the fine eyes. So he was just like the others after all!

“Good evening,” he said.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I want you to come and walk with me to-morrow morning. Down by the sea. There’s something I want to say to you.”

“Say it now,” she snapped.

“I can’t.”

“Why don’t you ask me to let you walk home with me? They all do.”

“Because I don’t want to walk home with you—to-night.” She looked directly into his eyes. They were clear and steady as they had been in the bar. The snarl left her voice. It trailed down to the low tone which was natural to it. “I go in at eleven in the morning,” she said. “It will have to be before eleven.”

“You have pretty long hours,” he said. “I wish you could give me to-morrow morning, though. I’ll get a taxi and we can drive round a bit.”

“All right, then. I’ll come. Pick me up down by the Challet.”

Now he would ask her to kiss him. He would move his hands over her bust and back. She was sure he would want to play the old game, but he did nothing of the sort. He said good-night with sharp suddenness and crossed over to where a little boat lay in the shadow of a rock.

I wonder what’s on his mind? Lois asked herself. The morning, indeed! They had never suggested the daytime before. And he hadn’t wanted to go home with her. Queer fish! But he was a sailor. Sailors were just sailors, nothing more. She didn’t want a sailor. What did a sailor know about the things a woman longed for: the attentions, the compliments? Where could a sailor find those words that burnt the commonplace into a dear, fervid fire? A sailor’s love would be like a fierce storm that raged for a moment and then eased off. In the calm that followed there would be the monotony that killed women. So many women died of that monotony: haggard, drab women with children dragging at them.

She wanted a man who could make some of her dreams come true. How wonderful they must have been, the men of the old courts; elegant men who held your coat, opened your fan, told you how beautiful you were. Would David’s father have been like those men if she had known him better? Nothing would ever come of that now. Just as well. Did he know she was a barmaid now? Perhaps.

Kitty was sitting at the sewing-machine making baby clothes. She looked awful with those shadows under her eyes and that figure. How could she go to the bar and sit there with the men? Soon she’d have to give it up until after the baby was born and put into the home with the previous one. Kitty had prepared a cold lunch and left some of it on the table for Lois. The little house had four rooms: three bedrooms and a general room which the girls used as a sitting-dining room. There was a bit of a garden in front, but none of the girls could afford a gardener. The garden was a riot of weeds. The house was quite tidy. A charwoman came in every afternoon to “do” for them. Lois sat down mechanically to eat the food.

“I’m going out for a drive in the morning,” she said. “They’re asking me out in the mornings now. Strange, isn’t it?”

“It’s new,” Kitty answered. “Is it that chap with the nice eyes who had a beer at your table about nine o’clock?”

“Yes. So you noticed him?”

He would ask you to go out in the morning. He’s different.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Sure. He’s different.”

*  *  *

Lois and the sailor were jogging along over the pock-marked roads of Malta. The taxi seemed to be for ever bumping in and out of holes.

“The Government spends little enough on the roads,” the sailor observed.

“Let us stop somewhere,” she said. “There are seats on the Tower Road overlooking the sea. Nice place to sit. Not too many nursemaids there.”

“All right.” He gave the order to the driver. They found a seat under a tree. He didn’t put his arm along the back of it. He is doing none of the usual fussing, she thought. She waited. She would let him talk.

“How long have you been working in the bar?” he asked.

“Four months.”

“How did you happen to take the job? I don’t suppose you mind telling me.”

“Not in the least. I thought I would rather take it than starve.”

He closed his fingers round her wrist. Every finger made its definite little red line. “Poor girl,” he said. “I knew you were driven to it.”

She looked at him sideways. The hard morning glare brought out his colouring. His skin was a smooth olive with the blood burning under it like a warm light. His neck looked like a column. His hair was very thick and rebellious; vital hair that had a personality of its own. He reminded her of an engine which had slowed down for a moment. “I came out here as a nursemaid,” she said, “ to take care of a little boy. Little David Sloan. He was four years old. I got along very well with him until his mother imagined that his father was making love to me. Then I got the sack.”

“Did his father make love to you?”

“No. He was only nice to me. He would have been nice to anyone. He was like that: gentle and sympathetic.”

She didn’t lay out all the discontented thoughts that were in her mind. Thoughts that went on beating in her brain as her heart went on beating in her body. How could she tell him that if David’s father had ever looked at her as he looked at his wife she would have died of very joy?

“But before you came out here?” the boy asked.

“I did two years of probation work in a hospital. Then my mother got sick and she wrote me such a forlorn letter. I chucked up the career and got a job as nursery-maid to the little boy; As my living was provided, I thought I could send my mother every penny I made. She died soon after I came out here and then I lost the job. Sacked, as I told you. I hadn’t the money to return. I haven’t had it since.”

His fingers tightened on her wrist again. “Poor girl,” he whispered. “Would you like to go home now if you had the money?”

“I would like to go to England. Home never meant much to me. It was a place of squalling children. The sink for ever full of dirty dishes. Talk about the wolf at the door! He lived right with us. Father used to drink. I don’t blame him. Mother was for ever having children. She had ten. Thank God, they are all scattered now in different directions. Some women are just born to have babies; not for anything else in the world. Mother was that sort.

Her thoughts were rushing up behind the despondency of her words. Thoughts of the life she wanted; of the love she wanted. No use to tell him. There were inner secret thoughts of love a woman never told a man. Secret places of her heart she dared not show to a man. In the closest of intimacies men and women remained strangers. There was just the occasional man who understood. Once she believed she could not die until she had known him. Now she had given up the search. The beauty she wanted always vanished like the rose colour out of the sunset.

“What did you want to tell me?”

“I wanted to ask you to accept money from me for your passage home. Now that you have told me about your home, or rather the lack of one, I want you to let me help you until you get on your feet.”

She stared at him now. “Why do you make me this offer?” she asked. “And how can you?”

“I will answer your last question first. I couldn’t on sailor’s pay—but I have an income. Let me tell you something about myself. It’s only fair after your confidences. I left home because my mother married again. My stepfather is a fop. A dago. Very oiled. Very polished. One of those things called a lady’s man. You know the sort that women fall for. Latin stuff and all that.”

She didn’t answer.

He went on. “Five minutes in his company convinced me that I was going to beat it. I wasn’t of age. After a lot of bickering my mother consented to my going to sea. She was in love. You know, parting with children doesn’t affect a woman so much when she’s in love.” Lois nodded. “I’m of age now. I have my own money. My father left it to me. As soon as my time is up—it is almost up now. I am getting out of the Navy. Going to try business.”

“And my first question?” she asked.

“I offer you this because I care for you.”

“But how can you? You don’t know me.”

“I knew my stepfather after five minutes.” He was not boasting. There was nothing of the braggart in his voice. He simply said something which he believed to be true.

“If I took your money—what then? I couldn’t pay you back.”

“Never mind all that. Will you take it? For God’s sake do and leave that bar. You can’t go on drinking like that. It’ll kill you.”

“I never drink anything.”

“What!”

“We girls drink water instead of gin and tea instead of beer. We couldn’t pour gin and beer down all day. We’d he drunk all the time. Old Sultana charges the men for the drinks and they don’t know his little joke.”

“Pretty thick, charging us sixpence for a glass of water,” he said.

“But we get fifty per cent on the water.”

‘That’s different. The old swine has a little humanity about him after all. How do you live here?”

“With two girls. You saw them. Alice and Kitty. They are Maltese, but they have given themselves those names. I can’t pronounce their real names.”

“They are awful. How can you stick them? Do let me help.”

“Perhaps I don t agree with you about your stepfather. It is the little things which count with a woman. I think it is the little things that count anyway.”

“You are wrong. Only the big things count.”

“But the big things are made up of so many parts.”

“Won’t you let me help you? Please say yes. I want to, ever so much.” His eyes were burning into hers now.

“I will let you know. Write the name of your ship on this.” She took a little notebook out of her purse. “And now drive me back to the Challet, please. It is getting late.”

“Write to me at once,” he told her. “We are pushing off in three days.”

In the carriage he asked her to kiss him good-bye. She put up her face for his kiss. Then as he bent towards her she realized his strength and his sex. There was something terrific in them. She shut her eyes. She felt her whole body burning in the kiss, although his lips touched hers calmly, as if a fierce volcano raged under ice.

*  *  *

In London she slipped back into her interrupted career as she had slipped into the life of a barmaid. She spoke the nurse’s jargon now as a short time ago she had spoken the slang of the bar. Necessity had always been her guide. It made her accept Barrie’s assistance—his name was Barrie Oakland—almost as soon as he had offered it. She had known that day in Malta when he had written the name of his ship in her notebook that she would never carry on in the bar if any means of retreat were offered. The awfulness of her life came over her in an overpowering flood of disgust. How had she ever endured it?

Barrie was in London now. He had bought himself into a radio-selling firm. He had so much practical experience with the radio while he was in the Navy that his new work was like a continuation of the old; a continuation with a difference. He had more freedom, shorter hours, and the chance to live on land which he had ached for.

At first it had been enough for him to walk through the lighted streets at night rubbing shoulders with those who had always been on the land. He liked looking in the entrance of theatres without going in; just to know that people were inside enjoying themselves. He would loiter in the lobby and look at the photographs of the actors placed near the ticket-window and then stroll out happy to know that he could walk for miles without any restriction. That was at first. Now he was working in earnest. He had become what the sailors used to call a landlubber. His old loping stride had left him and he walked the streets as if he had never known the heaving floor of the deck.

Lois intended to pay him back as soon as she was able to take her first cases. It would be a little at a time, but she would be glad when it was paid.

She saw him frequently. They went to theatres, to restaurants, to dances, to night-clubs. He had asked her to leave the hospital and marry him. He loved her with an intensity she was beginning to fear. Later she might love him. She wondered if the miracle would happen. She wanted to love him. Why did she always love some man she shouldn’t love, usually some other woman’s husband? She had never actually permitted a married man to love her; but she knew of times she had wanted them to. Some strange fatality always followed those times. Something which interrupted the trend of her life and pushed her down to poverty and squalor.

She had told Barrie about David’s father. That was necessary to explain why she had become a barmaid. But she hadn’t told him of others; and there had been others.

If Barrie were like the others, could she love him? He saw the fulfilment at the end, not the road to love. She wanted to wander, unhindered, through the little scented byways that led off the road to marriage. Barrie would never be any woman’s companion on those joints. He was like a driving rain that wounds the earth to do it good.

Each moment of her days was crowded with work; learning to dress wounds, going to lectures, staying with patients when the nurses were off duty. But nights when she didn’t go out she was lonely, and full of moods; nights to wonder about a thousand things she could never put into words. There was an apple tree down in the garden. It was in full bloom. In the daytime it seemed out of place in London. But at night she could sniff its loveliness while she sat up in bed and imagined herself in other circumstances. Women always longed for contrast. It was the rich man’s daughter who ran away with the chauffeur. Women like herself wanted beauty even if it meant tragedy—even if it strode towards them in garments of disillusion.

Barrie’s mother wrote to her and asked her to spend the weekend with them at their country house in Surrey. Barrie telephoned to urge her to accept.

“You will enjoy the place,” he said, “and a bit of a change won’t do you any harm. You can arrange to leave for a day or two. Be ready at four and we’ll drive down to-morrow afternoon.”

She hadn’t met his mother or his stepfather. He had told her a lot about them. Not having to live with him, Barrie was becoming reconciled to his stepfather.

“He’s not a he-man,” he would say, “but if the mater is so keen on him . . .” Barrie felt that strange agreement with all about him, felt by persons who are in love.

Lois telephoned to Madame Bordi—that was Barrie’s mother’s name—and told her she would like to come; that she would drive down with Barrie.

Clothes were a bit of a problem. She had a brown sports costume that didn’t look too shabby. With her two crepe blouses it would do for driving down and back. The little voile morning dress with the Maltese-lace collar and cuffs which Kitty had made for her would do in the daytime. And Kitty’s masterpiece would be just the thing for the evening. She loved that black dress, it looked so professional. It hadn’t the slightest touch of the amateur. If Kitty hadn’t been such a fool, having babies all the time, she could have been a dressmaker in London.

They had to drive down in the rain. It seemed to be for ever raining in London. The damp wind which blew in her face curled the ends of her hair. She was pleased. She felt that she would look her best when she arrived. The dry winds of Malta used to take the curl out of her hair and break it off. She always had that against the place.

“Why so silent?” Barrie asked her when there had been about ten minutes’ silence between them.

“I was thinking that the sun almost never shines here in London. It is always grey and misty. But that gives it a soft appearance, mellowed, like the portrait of a woman done by candlelight.”

“You like London, don’t you?” he asked.

“I think I love it. It has so much to give. At least there is so much that you can wrest out of its keeping.”

“Are you happy now, Lois?”

“Yes. The work is difficult at the hospital, but it is getting me somewhere.”

“Where?”

“To a place where I can earn my own living.”

“You were never intended to make your own living. Won’t you marry me, darling? Won’t you let me tell the mater that we are going to be married?”

“Not yet, Barrie. I can’t say yes yet.”

He steered with one hand and caught her hand with the other. His hand felt hot. He was like a furnace under the earth; hidden fire that never broke out in eruptions. His love was greater than the love she craved. It was deeper. Like something at the bottom of a well. Was it better than the love that came round you in words, in little aches?

Madame Bordi was not quite the woman she had expected to meet. She could not fit her into the present picture. She seemed shrewd and a little hard. She had Barrie’s direct eyes, but her mouth was a thin precise line. She looked like a woman who would think twice before she would allow number two to fling away the fortune of number one. Lois would know her better when her husband came in. He was out when they arrived.

The house was lovely. Old world. Not too much furniture. A few fine statues stood against the panelled walls in the drawing-room. The lights were concealed behind square pieces of glass set into the walls. A bunch of red flowers on a table in one corner looked like a little fire against the sombre brown. It was a room which allowed you freedom of thought. It didn’t intrude itself. Lois wondered if it expressed number one or number two.

The bedroom she was to occupy seemed intimate and chummy after the drawing-room. It was done in a sly green that had a lot of yellow in it, and a warm cream-ivory.

“Will you rest awhile?” the maid asked her. “You must be chilled through. We have dinner at half-past eight.”

“I believe I will lie down,” Lois said.

“Yes, miss. I will get you some tea. Shall I put a little brandy in it?”

“No, thank you.”

In a few moments the maid was back with the tea and, after promising to get Lois a hot bath at half-past seven, she went out. Alone, Lois wondered about the woman she had just met. and about the man she would meet at dinner.

*  *  *

He was standing by the fireplace talking to Barrie when she went down to the drawing-room. His wife, dressed now in green velvet with a long string of pearls, sat in a low chair, her feet stretched out to the fire. He shook hands with Lois and said something about being glad she could come. He drew up another chair to the fire and placed a cushion at her back. There was something that isolated him; that took him away from his wife and from Barrie with a little distinguishing touch.

He was tall and slender with very dark eyes and rather sharp features. His hands had that ruinous perfection which comes down from useless ancestors; the hands of yesterday. The future would have no such hands.

He had taken her in at the first glance. Her narrow beauty in her long, straight frock appealed to him. His eyes of the connoisseur approved of the dress; of her pale gold hair that lay in shining waves about her face. She had always been satisfied with her hair. It was the colour that art could not produce. The consciousness of his approval gave her a feeling of achievement. She knew that he was thinking about her, that she was running along in his mind like a flame along a wick.

His wife sat in his radiance, blinded by it. Lois felt that he was her one weakness. The hardness had gone out of her face now. She was like a faithful dog, content to lick the hand of its master, if only that hand would reach out and occasionally pat her. He was years younger than she was.

“Barrie tells me that you have been in Malta,” he said. “I was there some years ago. What a medieval charm the Island has! Going there is like stepping back two thousand years.”

“The Maltese consider it very modern,” Lois said. She was wondering how much Barrie had told them.

“Do they still light the streets with little lamps?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered, “in some places, but not now since the black-out.”

“Such dark little streets,” he said. “You could imagine that someone in a long cape would rush out from one of the hidden doors and stab you in the back. “

“But there is no thrill in those streets,” she complained. “You could walk through them for ever, at any hour of the night, nothing would happen.” There was regret in her voice.

His next words were almost a caress. “What a pity,” he said.

The butler brought in the cocktails. Lois never drank anything in spite of her barmaid experience; but she would drink to-night. The butler placed a little table by her chair and put the cocktail on it. She picked it up, trying to assume an air of ease.

The picture of her father for ever staggering about the house had kept her from drinking. The picture of her mother for ever having children had kept her virtuous. Fine morality to found a life on. She had often laughed bitterly when she thought of it. It kept her from taking what she wanted, but it didn’t keep her from hating her lack of courage.

She sat next to Carlo Bordi at dinner. She could feel his personality; something disquieting beside her. Like men who understand women, he had tentacles of intuition that reached out and touched her. He knew her. His dark eyes had bored through her little deceits like gimlets. He knew she did not love Barrie, and without a word he managed to convey to her what he knew. Secretly and furtively she wondered what he was thinking under the words that were sliding so easily off his lips.

He was doing most of the talking. His wife said something occasionally—but only something to encourage him to go on. Across the table Barrie’s eyes watched her with their steady glowing light.

They played bridge after dinner. She had never been much of a player, but to-night she fumbled her cards terribly, trumped her partner’s tricks, dropped her cards on the table, and once she revoked. What difference did it make? They played only for fun.

She was glad when the evening drew to a close, when it was time to go upstairs. Barrie met her on the landing and put his arms round her.

“Darling,” he whispered, “how goes it?”

She didn’t answer him. She put her head on his shoulder and kept perfectly still. How strong he was! What a rock to lean on! Presently she lifted her face and felt his kiss on her lips. The kiss was loaded with protection. Carlo’s kiss would not be like Barrie’s. There would be divine fever in it. She put her arms round Barrie’s neck. She wanted to do something to make him happy. But she could only draw him to her in a little spasm of emotion.

On her breakfast tray there was a little bunch of orchids. “Mr. Bordi sent them up, miss,” the maid explained. The lovely parasites looked cool and expensive in their crystal vase. Their beauty justified their living on stolen nutriment. What green thing would not be glad to feel them clinging to its body? They reminded her of Carlo. He and the orchids stood equal in justification.

She dressed carefully. It was still raining. It meant a day in the house. She was sorry. She wanted to be out in the garden, wanted to walk through the quiet streets which looked so prim and proper. Would she have an opportunity to talk with him alone? Would he question her about her life? She would tell him nothing. She could not talk to him as she talked to Barrie.

The conversation at lunch was not exciting. Each coupled his remarks to the end of what the other had just said. A continuous train of one idea ran round the table. It was about something they had read in the paper. She didn’t even know what it was. Madame Bordi looked older in the daytime. The daylight brought the hardness back into her face. Only when she looked at her husband did it soften and fade out.

After lunch Madame talked about things they could do in spite of the rain. Did Lois play billiards? There might be something worth listening to on the radio. Would she care to have a look at the conservatory?

They played billiards. Lois did better than she had at bridge. His eyes and his knees were not just across the table to disconcert her. They listened to the radio. They discussed the many varieties of orchids and lilies in the conservatory. Lois was sure than Carlo was responsible for the conservatory.

She had no moment alone with him and it was almost time to drive home with Barrie. Was it imagination or was his wife deliberately trying to keep them apart? The moment came to murmur all the conventional phrases one uses at the end of a visit.

“Thank you. It has been lovely.”

“So glad you could come. You must come down often with Barrie.”

“And we must have a little theatre party in town,” Carlo said. He put as much meaning as he could into the way he held her coat. His eyes glowed when he saw the orchids pinned to it.

In the car she felt the nearness of Barrie. The road was slippery and he had to drive carefully.

“What do you think of Pop?” he asked.

“I like him,” she answered.

“Do you think he’s sincere?”

“I don’t know about that.”

“I think he rehearses everything,” Barrie said. “Like a dancer who prepares some new steps for the audience.”

“He didn’t strike me like that,” she defended.

“Well, don’t fall for him, dear,” he cautioned. “The mater thinks he’s the goods. I don’t suppose I’d be allowed in the hospital for a while,” he pleaded.

“Yes, you would, downstairs. But it is so stuffy in the public rooms.”

He looked disappointed.

“Barrie,” she said, after one of her silences, “do you really think it would be better if I left the hospital and married you?”

“You know what I think,” he said.

“Then I will, darling.”

“My God, Lois, you would say that when I have to keep both hands on the wheel.”