The Fortieth Door

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The Fortieth Door, by Mary Hastings Bradley

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Title: The Fortieth Door
Author: Mary Hastings Bradley
Release Date: September 19, 2004 [eBook #13498]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORTIETH DOOR***
E-text prepared by Janet Kegg and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

THE FORTIETH DOOR
by
MARY HASTINGS BRADLEY
AUTHOR OF The Wine of Astonishment, etc.
1920

TO ARTHUR MILLS CORWIN

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
A RASH PROMISE II. MASKS AND MASKERS III. IN THE PASHA'S PALACE IV. EXPLANATIONS V. AT THE GARDEN GATE VI. A SECRET OF THE SANDS VII. TO McLEAN'S ASTONISHMENT VIII. TEWFICK RECEIVES IX. A WEDDING PRESENT X. THE RECEPTION XI. THE FORTY DOORS XII. THE UNINVITED GUEST XIII. THE BEY RETURNS XIV. WITHIN THE WALLS XV. UNDERGROUND XVI. OUT OF THE DARKNESS XVII. AZIZA XVIII. AZIZA IS OFFENDED XIX. AN INTERRUPTION XX. BEYOND THE DOOR XXI. MISS JEFFRIES MAKES A CALL XXII. FROM THE BAZAARS XXIII. IN THE DESERT XXIV. THE TOMB OF A KING XXV. IN CAIRO XXVI. THE PAINTED CASE
CHAPTER I
A RASH PROMISE
He didn't want to go. He loathed the very thought of it. Every flinching nerve in him protested.
A masked ball--a masked ball at a Cairo hotel! Grimacing through peep-holes, self-conscious advances, flirtations ending in giggles! Tourists as nuns, tourists as Turks, tourists as God-knows-what, all preening and peacocking!
Unhappily he gazed upon the girl who was proposing this horror as a bright delight. She was a very engaging girl--that was the mischief of it. She stood smiling there in the bright, Egyptian sunshine, gay confidence in her gray eyes. He hated to shatter that confidence.
And he had done little enough for her during her stay in Cairo. One tea at the Gezireh Palace Hotel, one trip to the Sultan al Hassan Mosque, one excursion through the bazaars--not exactly an orgy of entertainment for a girl from home!
He had evaded climbing the Pyramids and fled from the ostrich farm. He had withheld from inviting her to the camp on the edge of the Libyan desert where he was excavating, although her party had shown unmistakable signs of a willingness to be diverted from the beaten path of its travel.
And he was not calling on her now. He had come to Cairo for supplies and she had encountered him by chance upon a corner of the crowded Mograby, and there promptly she had invited him to to-night's ball.
"But it's not my line, you know, Jinny," he was protesting. "I'm so fearfully out of dancing--"
"More reason to come, Jack. You need a change from digging up ruins all the time--it must be frightfully lonely out there on the desert. I can't think how you stand it."
Jack Ryder smiled. There was no mortal use in explaining to Jinny Jeffries that his life on the desert was the only life in the world, that his ruins held more thrills than all the fevers of her tourist crowds, and that he would rather gaze upon the mummied effigy of any lady of the dynasty of Amenhotep than upon the freshest and fairest of the damsels of the present day.
It would only tax Jinny's credulity and hurt her feelings. And he liked Jinny--though not as he liked Queen Hatasu or the little nameless creature he had dug out of a king's ante-room.
Jinny was an interfering modern. She was the incarnation of impossible demands.
But of course there was no real reason why he should not stop over and go to the dance.
* * * * *
Ten minutes later, when she had extracted his promise and abandoned him to the costumers, he was scourging his weakness.
He had known better! Very well, then, let him take his medicine. Let him go as--here he disgustedly eyed the garment that the Greek was presenting--as Little Lord Fauntleroy! He deserved it.
Shudderingly he looked away from the pretty velvet suit; he scorned the monk's robes that were too redolent of former wearers; he rejected the hot livery of a Russian mujik; he flouted the banality of the Pierrot pantaloons.
Thankfully he remembered McLean. Kilts, that was the thing. Tartans, the real Scotch plaids. Some use, now, McLean's precious sporrans.... He'd look him up at once.
Out of the crowded Mograby he made his way on foot to the Esbekeyih quarters where the streets were wider and emptier of Cairene traffickers and shrill itinerates and laden camels and jostling donkeys.
It was a glorious day, a day of Egypt's blue and gold. The sky was a wash of water color; the streets a flood of molten amber. A little wind from the north rustled the acacias