The Fortieth Door | Page 3

absorbedly rolling up his trouser leg.
"The dear Egyptian flea?" he added.
"Not at all. I am looking at my knees," said Ryder glumly. "I just remembered that I have to show them to-night.... A ball--in masquerade. At a hotel. Tourist crowd.... How do you think they'll look with one of your Scotch plaidies atop?" he inquired feelingly.
"Fascinating, Jack, fascinating," said the promptly sardonic McLean. "You--at a masquerade!... So that's what brought you to town."
He cocked a taunting eye at him. "Well, well, she must be a most engaging young person--you'll be taking her out on the desert with you now, like our friend Delcassé--a pleasant, retired spot for a body to have his honeymoon ... no distractions of society ... undiluted companionship, you might say.... Now what made you think she'd like your knees?" he murmured contemplatively. "Aren't you just a bit--previous? Apt to startle and frighten the lady?"
"Oh, go on, go on," Ryder exhorted bitterly. "I like it. It's better than I can do myself. Go on.... But while you are talking trot out your tartans. Something clannish now--one of those ancestral rigs that you are always cherishing ... Rich and red, to set off my dark, handsome type."
"Set off you'll be, Jack dear," promised McLean, dragging out a huge chest. "Set off you'll be."
* * * * *
Set off he was.
And a fool he felt himself that night, as he confronted his brilliant image in the glass. A Scot of the Scots, kilted in vivid plaid, a rakish cap on his black hair, a tartan draped across his shoulder, short, heavy stockings clasping his legs and low shoes gay with big buckles.
"Oh, young Lochinvar has come out of the west," warbled McLean merrily, as he straightened the shoulder pin of silver and Scotch topaz.
"Out of Hades," said Ryder, rather pointlessly, for he felt it was Hades he was going into.
Chiefly he was concerned with his knees and the striking contrast between their sheltered whiteness and the desert brown of his face.... Milky pale they gleamed at him from the glass.... Bony hard, they flaunted their angles at every move.... He was grateful that he was not a centipede.
"Oh, 'twas all for my rightful king, That I gaed o'er the border; Twas all for--
"You didn't tell me her name, now, Jack."
"Where's my mask?" Ryder was muttering. "I say, aren't there any pockets in these confounded petticoats?"
"In the sporran, man.... There!" McLean at last withheld his hand from its handiwork. "Jock, you're a grand sight," he pronounced with a special Scottish burr. "If ye dinna win her now--'Bonny Charley's now awa,'" he sung as Ryder, with a last darkling look at his vivid image, strode towards the door.
"He's awa' all right--and he'll be back again as soon as he can make it."
With this cheerless anticipation of the evening's promise, the departing one stalked, like an exiled Stuart, to his waiting carriage.
For a moment more McLean kept the ironic smile alive upon his lips, as he listened to the rattle of the wheels and the harsh gutturals of the driver, then the smile died as he turned back into the room.
"Eh, but wouldn't you like it, though, Andy," he said to himself, "if some girl now liked you enough to get you to go to one of those damned things.... The lucky dog!"
CHAPTER II
MASKS AND MASKERS
Moors and Juliets and Circassian slaves and Knights at Arms were fast emerging from lift or cloak room, and confronting each other through their masks in sheepish defiance and curiosity. Adventurous spirits were circulating. Voices, lowered and guarded, began to engage in nervous, tittering banter.... Laughter, belatedly smothered, flared to betrayals....
The orchestra was playing a Viennese waltz and couple after couple slipped out upon the floor.
Lounging against the wall, Ryder glowered mockingly through his mask holes at the motley. It was so exactly as he had foreseen. He was bored--and he was going to be more bored. He was jostled--and he was going to be more jostled. He was hot--and he was going to be hotter.
Where in the world was Jinny Jeffries? He deserved, he felt, exhilaratingly kind treatment to compensate him for this insanity. He gazed about, and encountering a plump shepherdess ogling him he stepped hastily behind a palm.
He fairly stepped upon a very small person in black. A phantom-like small person, with the black silk hubarah of the Mohammedan high-caste woman drawn down to her very brows, and over the entire face the black street veil. Not a feature visible. Not an eyebrow. Not an eyelash, not a hint of the small person herself, except a very small white, ringed hand, lifted as if in defense of his clumsiness.
"Sorry," said Ryder quickly, and driven by the instinct of reparation. "Won't you dance?"
A mute shake of the head.
Well, his duty was done. But something, the