"You have every reason to do so," said Pasquale.
"I saved you from prison."
"You accepted a bribe."
"For heaven"s sake," cried Judith, "go on speaking in low voices, or we shall have a scene here."
One or two idlers hung near with an air of curiosity and the huge beuniformed commissionaire watched us with an uncertain eye. I kept a tight hold of Carlotta and drew her more behind the screen of a palm near which we happened to stand.
"Madame is right," said Hamdi. "We can discuss this little affair like gentlemen."
"Then, in the most gentlemanly way in the world," said Pasquale, "I swear to you that if you touch this young lady, I will kill you."
"It appears, to be Monsieur," said the obese Turk with a graceful wave of the hand in my direction, "and not you, who has robbed my home of its treasure, unless," he added, and I shall always remember the hideous leer of that pulpy-nosed and small-pox pitted face, "unless Monsieur has relieved you of your responsibilities."
For a moment I was speechless. Pasquale put himself in front of me.
"Steady on, Ordeyne."
"Sir," said I, "I found this young lady dest.i.tute in the streets of London. She is my wife and therefore a British subject; so you can take yourself and your infamous insinuations to the devil, and the quicker the better."
"Or there"ll be two of us engaged in the killing," said Pasquale.
Hamdi again exchanged a few sentences in Turkish with Carlotta, and then smiled upon us with the same unruffled suavity.
_"Au revoir, Mesdames et Messieurs."_ With a courteous salute he shuffled back towards the stall-entrance.
The tension over, Carlotta broke from me and clutched Pasquale by the arm.
"Oh, kill him, kill him, kill him!" she cried in a pa.s.sionate whisper.
He freed himself gently and took out a cigarette case.
"Scarcely necessary. He"ll soon die." And turning to me he added: "Not a sound organ in his body. Besides, it seems to me that if there is any murdering to be done, it"s the business of Sir Marcus."
"There is going to be no murdering," said I, profoundly disgusted, "and don"t talk in that revolting way about the wretched man dying."
I regained possession of Carlotta who, seeing that I was angry, cast a scared glance at me, and became docile as suddenly as she had grown pa.s.sionate. I turned to Judith.
"Will you ever forgive me--" I began.
But the sight of her face froze me. It was white and hard and haggard, and the lips were drawn into a thin line, and the delicate colour she had put upon her cheeks stood out in ghastly contrast. Her dress, like the foam of a summer sea, mocked the winter in her face.
"There is nothing to forgive," she said, smiling icily. "I came for a variety entertainment and I have not been disappointed. Good-bye.
Perhaps Mr. Pasquale will be so kind as to put me into a cab."
"I will drive you home, if you will allow me," said Pasquale.
We separated, shaking hands as if nothing had happened, as perfunctorily as if we had been the most distant of acquaintances.
On our way back we spoke very little. Carlotta nestled close against me, seeking the shelter of my arm. She cried, I don"t know why, but it seemed to afford comfort. I kissed her lips and her hair.
At home, I drew the sofa near the fire--it has been a raw night and she feels the cold like a tropical plant--and sat down by her side.
"Did you hear what I said to Hamdi Effendi--that you were my wife?"
"But that was only a lie," she answered in her plain idiom.
My petting and soothing together with the sense of home security and a cup of French chocolate prepared by Antoinette, who, astonished at our early return and seeing her darling in distress, had hastened to provide culinary consolation, had restored her wonted serenity of demeanour.
Polyphemus also purred rea.s.suringly upon her lap.
"It was a lie this evening," said I, "but in a few days I hope it will be true."
"You are going to marry me?" she asked, suddenly sitting erect and looking at me rather bewildered.
"If you will have me, Carlotta."
"I will do what Seer Marcous tells me," she answered. "Will you marry me to-morrow?"
"I think it hardly possible, my dear," I answered. "But I shall lose no time, I a.s.sure you. Once you are my wife neither Hamdi Effendi nor the Sultan of Turkey can claim you. No one can take an Englishman"s wife away from him."
"Hamdi is a devil," said Carlotta.
"We can laugh at him," said I.
"Did you ever see such an ugly mug?"
Where she gets her occasional bits of slang from I do not know; but her little foreign staccato p.r.o.nunciation gives them unusual quaintness. I laughed, and Carlotta, throwing Polyphemus off her lap, laughed too, and sidled up against me. The cat regarded us for a moment with a disgusted eye, then stretched himself as if he had quitted Carlotta of his own accord, and walked away in a state of dignified boredom.
"Hamdi is like a pig and an elephant and a great fat turkey," said Carlotta.
"If all the world were beautiful," I exclaimed, "such a thing as our appreciation of beauty would not exist. I should not even be aware that my Carlotta was beautiful."
She put her hands on my knees in her impulsive way, and bending forward looked at me delightedly.
"Oh, you do think so?"
"You are the loveliest and most intoxicating creature on the earth, Carlotta."
"Now I am sure, sure, sure," she cried, enraptured. "You have never said it before, Seer Marcous darling, and I must kiss you."
I checked her with my hands on her soft shoulders.
"Only if you promise to marry me."
"Of course," said Carlotta.
She said it as thoughtlessly and light-heartedly as if I had asked her to come out for a walk. Again I felt the odd spasm of pain. In my late madness I had often pictured the scene: how I should hold her throbbing beauty in my arms, my senses clouded with the fragrance of her, and how, in burning words, I should pour out the litany of my pa.s.sion. But to the G.o.ds it seemed otherwise. No Quaker maiden"s betrothal kiss was chaster.