"Ugh!" his wife e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "I suppose you think he"ll be content to be a sort of pasha out there, with his harim of Bedouin women; raking in a fat salary from your precious Company, and fleecing the natives to fill your pockets. It"s a pretty picture!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: _A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY-BURNING SANDS_]
"Well, it isn"t a prettier picture," he answered, "to think of a fine man like that messing about Cairo, wasting his time at dinner parties and dances on a wretched Foreign Office pittance."
Kate did not continue the discussion, and it was not long before she went to her friend"s room, where, entering quietly, she found Muriel standing in her nightdress at the western window, her bare arms resting on the high sill, and her gaze fixed upon the obscurity of the desert which lay black and desolate under the stars. The window was open, and the drifting night-wind stirred the ma.s.s of her dark hair which fell about her shoulders.
She turned quickly as she heard the footstep, and Kate was dismayed at the pallor of her face.
"I can"t make him out," Muriel said. "I can"t make him out. Right out there somewhere, in that blackness, he is smoking his pipe and stroking his dogs and yawning himself to sleep. And yet he must know that I"m here, calling to him and crying to him."
She stretched out her arms, her fists clenched. "O G.o.d!" she muttered, "Let me understand him, let me see what"s in his mind."
Kate drew the curtain across the window, as though she would shut out the dark menace of the desert, and drew her friend towards the bed.
"It"ll all come out in the wash, old girl," she choked. "You"re not the only woman who finds her man incomprehensible sometimes."
She looked at Muriel and Muriel at her; and suddenly, like two children, they put their heads each upon the other"s shoulder, and sobbed as though their hearts would break.
When Muriel returned next morning to the Residency, she went up to her own sitting-room at once; and presently she sent a message down to her father, who was at work in his study, asking him to come to her as soon as he had a few minutes to spare: nor was it long before he came tripping into the room.
It was evident that he felt the situation to be somewhat awkward; for his remarks began on a piping note of jocularity, and so rapidly descended the scale to one of profound melancholy that Muriel was reminded of a gramophone running down.
"Father," she said presently, "I want you to tell me exactly what Daniel said about me before he left. I suppose he told you that we had had a quarrel."
Lord Blair seemed puzzled, and he raised his hands in a gesture indicating his lack of grasp of the essential points in Daniel"s recent tirade.
"Yes, he told me about the little tiff; but I really don"t know whether I apprehend his meaning exactly. He was very much upset, very overwrought. It seems, if I have understood him aright, that he finds fault with you because you are rather-what shall I say?-rather given to the superficialities of our civilization. He would prefer you _in puris naturalibus_"-he corrected himself-"that is to say metaphorically speaking. He said that "the fashionable world," as he called it, filled him with gloom, gave him the ... ah ... hump, I think he said; and he was disappointed to find that you a.s.sociated yourself so fully with the frivolities of society, and were so foreign to the liberties, the sincerities, of more primitive conditions. I don"t know whether I am making myself clear."
"Perfectly," said Muriel. "I suppose he would have preferred to see me turning head over heels in the desert _in puris_ ...
what-you-said-_ibus_."
"I take it," Lord Blair explained, "that he was referring to your mental, not your physical att.i.tude."
"Oh, quite so," replied Muriel; and she burst out laughing, but her laughter was very close to tears.
Lord Blair patted her cheek. "Ah, Muriel," he said, his manner again becoming serious, "you mustn"t lose Daniel. I would rather that he were your husband than any man living."
"But I don"t think he wants to be my husband, or anybody"s husband," she replied.
"He is deeply in love with you," her father told her.
"That"s another matter," said she; and Lord Blair glanced at her in perplexity.
He was not altogether sorry that events had taken their present course; for it seemed to him that this temporary disunion would have a salutary effect on his daughter"s character. He could see clearly the faults of which Daniel complained; and he could not help thinking that this forceful show of disgust on her lover"s part would be instrumental in arousing her to the more serious things of life. It would be a lesson to her which would serve to fit her to be the wife of a man of genuine sincerity.
Moreover, in the case of Daniel, his sudden return to El Hamran, with his heart left behind him here at the Residency, would probably dispel, once and for all, that haunting dream of his desert paradise which otherwise would always cause him to be restless in Cairo. This time, if he were made of flesh and blood, he would find the desert intolerable, and in a few weeks he would probably be lured back to civilization by the call of his manhood.
That Daniel should marry Muriel, and take up his permanent position at the Residency, was his most ardent hope; and as the present events had occurred he had fitted them each into place in his growing plan of action.
In brief, his scheme was as follows. At the end of the month he himself would have to go up to the Sudan on his annual tour of inspection; and about the same time the Bindanes would be going to the Oases. He had expected to take his daughter with him to the Sudan, but, instead, he would send her with the Bindanes, and thus she would be in a position to effect a reconciliation with Daniel on his own ground, so to speak.
Hardy Muriel on camel-back in the desert would be more likely to win him than dainty Muriel in the ballroom; and Lord Blair, priding himself on his strategy, had almost come to believe that his sending Daniel off to El Hamran had been a definite move in his game, made with the object of bringing about this romantic meeting in the desert.
He rubbed his hands together now as he prepared to tell Muriel of his plan, so far as she ought to know it.
"Now, my dear," he said to her, "you must not fret. I have a little scheme in my mind, of which I think you will approve. I am going to try to arrange for you to go out to the Oases with our friends; and thus you will be able to see Daniel for a day or two, and, if so you wish, you will be able to make it up with him."
He stood back from her, and beamed upon her, his hands raised as though he were beating time to a visionary orchestra. But as he saw the expression in her eyes his face fell, and his hands sank to his side. He looked at her in dismay, and the thought came into his mind that she was undoubtedly a Blair; for, like all the Blairs in a temper, she resembled a beautiful monkey. Her eyebrows were knitted, her eyes were round and wide open, her lips were pursed, and her jaw was set. He had never realized before how very attractive she was.
"Do you suppose," she said, slowly and distinctly, "that I shall again put myself in a position to be snubbed? Do you think I would lower myself to go out to him in the desert and ask his forgiveness? No! If he wants me he can come back and ask _my_ forgiveness."
He watched her anxiously as she turned haughtily away. Then he shrugged his shoulders. "You both seem determined to lose one another," he remarked; and presently, like a man who has no time to waste, he stepped back to the door and opened it.
"I never want to see him again," said Muriel over her shoulder.
Lord Blair did not answer, but, shutting the door with a snap, left her to her bitter reflections.
Five minutes later a message was brought up from Lady Smith-Evered, who had called to consult her in regard to a proposed picnic; and Muriel therefore went downstairs to the drawing-room. There she found her imposing visitor seated upon the sofa behind a great bunch of pink peonies which stood in a vase upon a low table. She had evidently been walking in the hot sun, and her face, in spite of its powder, was itself extraordinarily suggestive of a pink peony in full bloom, so that, appearing as it seemed to do from amongst these showy flowers, it was like a burlesque of caricature of the works of nature.
"Good morning, my dear: forgive my getting up," she said to Muriel.
"Your sofa is lower than I expected."
Muriel sat down beside her. "I think Daniel Lane must have broken the springs," she answered. "He always used to fling himself into that corner when he had a fit of laziness."
Lady Smith-Evered glanced at her. "Why d"you say he "used to"? Doesn"t he do it now?"
"He"s gone," said Muriel. "Didn"t you know?"
"Gone?"
Muriel told her how Lord Blair had sent him off on a mission to the Oases. Her voice betrayed no trace of feeling as she explained away his sudden departure.
"Well, my dear," said Lady Smith-Evered, "I know you and he quite like each other, but I must say I can"t understand it. I"m relieved to hear he has gone. I don"t trust him in regard to women."
Muriel uttered a short laugh. "One might say the same of any man," she replied.
Lady Smith-Evered looked at her curiously. "I wonder what"s the real reason of his being sent off so suddenly," she remarked, a crafty expression coming into her face. "His going on a mission is probably only eyewash."
Muriel shrank before her prying eyes, and a feeling of anger was awakened in her; but she only shrugged her shoulders.
"I wonder if your father has been wise enough just to dismiss him in this way," Lady Smith-Evered mused. "I"ll find out: yes, I"ll get to the bottom of it."
The expression of inquisitive, self-complacent cunning in the woman"s face, and her actual blindness to the real facts of the matter, combined to arouse in Muriel an uncontrollable hostility.
"Oh, you needn"t bother to find out," she said. "You wouldn"t understand the real reason."