The Fortieth Door | Page 3

Information! Yesterday there was a stir about
two crazy lads who are supposed to have joined the Mecca pilgrims in
disguise.... Of course our clerks are Copts and do pick up a bit and the
Copts will talk.... I say, Jack, what are you doing?" he broke off to
demand in astonishment, for Jack Ryder had seated himself upon a
divan and was 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.